Alan Moore fan creates MySpace profile for the grand wizard of comicdom.
Alan Moore’s daughter comments:
Bonus Completely Unrelated Link
It’s nice to see that Mike Gagnon of Open Book Press isn’t going to let an expose of his business practices prevent him from sending out meaningless press releases.
DC Comics
OCT060229 SHOWCASE PRESENTS JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL 2 TP $16.99
I’m not sure why I’m getting this – I really didn’t enjoy the first one because I don’t quite have my nostalgia-vision tinted that way. Probably just being completist.
Marvel Comics
NOV062362 CHAMPIONS CLASSIC VOL 2 TP $19.99
I’d prefer to get Essential Champions with the same amount of money, actually. Still, the combination of Mantlo and early Byrne is hard for me to resist. I really do hope the Jim Shooter story involves a lot of people introducing themselves in awkward ways.
NOV062367 FANTASTIC FOUR BOOKS OF DOOM TP $14.99
I think I may have ordered this, just because I like Brubaker enough to justify $15 for six issues of decent-looking comics. Of course, part of me just wants DOOM to remain DOOM and kind of avoid any further exploration of his past, instead focusing on his ways to benefit mankind with his steely grip.
What the heck are you cats and kittens getting, anyway? Make me hep to the beat.
Here’s some sneak-peek concept art by Cover Girl artist Walter Pax. He’s part of the same Brazilian stable that Rafael Albuquerque calls home and I think it looks great – there’s a touch of that thing Rick Mays does with faces that I just love. When I get some inked work up, I’ll show that off, too.
That’s the sound of The Middle Man illustrator and Johnny Crossbones creator Les McClaine joining the burgeoning anti-ape discrimination movement. With bright stars like him in their corner, surely our simian friends will shine a light on the diversity that should form the fabric of our media culture.
Mike Sterling appears to have his heart in the right place as well with this post that begins with a truly heinous scene of carnage, one that we’ve seen played out thousands of times in comics and movies and I wish him luck on what looks to be a hard-fought campaign.
Finally, Koko The Gorilla has some words for all of us:
…for joining the crusade. It is good to see that someone else out there understands the injustice that’s being perpetrated every month in comics across this country while the big media corporations profit at the pain and suffering of minority characters. What’s really disgusting is when comics have the chance to rectify what damage has been done by a film series and they perpetuate the stereotypes further. Just take this bit from issue 22 of Marvel’s Planet of the Apes Magazine, written by Doug Moench and drawn by Alfredo Alcala.
If you thought this portrayal of primates was horrifying in its simplistic, over-the-top jingoism, check out this panel from earlier in the same story, this time drawn by Rico Rival – the brave warrior ape Aldo continues to speak like a child throughout the comic. Obviously, it’s not good enough to have a bloodthirsty speaking ape on the page, but they have to make them talk in bastardized pidgin so they’re perceived as an idiot by the readers. That’s just great, Marvel. Ape shall never kill ape or speak in proper sentences, apparently.
I swear, all of these creators are on crack. Look at that above page again – 30 years of so-called “progress” and that’s the best they can manage? I’m disgusted to the point where I’ve seriously considered walking away from comics, and until Andrew posted, I felt I was the only person who ever noticed this ridiculous twisting of everything I learned to hold dear as a kid, when I was reading Curious George while clutching my favorite sock monkey.
These so-called creators have obviously never looked at the research of scientists like Jane Goodall or heard of Koko the Gorilla. Instead, they use stories of freak gorilla attacks that were most likely caused by humans goading them into action. Just like their writing about any minority group they don’t understand, the writing in these stories is appallingly lazy and plays to the most hoary of clichés concerning a group they don’t care about and will probably never care about.
The panel above, from a story called “Captain Marvel Battles The Apes Who Could Make Fire” that appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #114, demonstrates that this problem has been going on for years and judging by the cover of this week’s Justice League Unlimited (a comic that’s supposed to appeal to children, for God’s sake!), there’s no sign of abating. It’s a sad state that I feel needs to be addressed if we’re really going to see true diversity in the comics medium.
OK, inmate, really. But the results, I have to say, are fan-fucking-tastic.
Jim Mahfood is among my favorite creators due to his energy-filled, graffiti-influenced art. His new minicomic, Ask For Janice is a 16-page exploration of that most influential of hip-hop albums, Paul’s Boutique by Beastie Boys, and what a perfect little thing it is. Using Dan LeRoy’s 33 1/3 book about the album’s recording as a basis, Mahfood lets the reader meet the principal players, get a glimpse into the condition the band was in before recording started as well as the actual process itself and, most enjoyably, give a track-by-track synopsis of the record. These rundowns include oddball facts, historical references, and dissection of the samples used and are the sort of trivia that sends a serious music nerd like myself back to the recording and the sources to further appreciate what the Dust Brothers did with this album.
Mahfood’s graphical sense works perfectly here – humor and funk create an appealing bouillabaisse and this pamphlet ends up feeling like a terrific museum exhibit. Recommended? You betcha.
Ask for Janice is available in a limited edition of 200 for the low, low cost of $10 from Mahfood’s online store.
Doop!
Doop!
DC Comics
JUL060145 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #6 $2.99
Yes, it’s completely blown its bimonthly schedule because Frank Quitely demands a certain (probably unattainable) level of perfection from himself. I don’t mind – it’s close to a platonic ideal of a Superman comic for me, much like the Up, Up, And Away story from last year.
NOV060272 MIDNIGHTER #3 $2.99
It’s not groundbreaking, but I really am enjoying this one. It’s nice to see Ennis do a semi-serious take on Gay Superpowered Batman.
NOV060189 SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #3 $2.99
For some reason or another, I thought this first arc was supposed to be 3 issues, but it looks like the fourth continues this story. There’s also a strange lack of issues solicited after that one, at least on the DC comics site.
Image Comics
OCT061858 JACK STAFF VOL 3 ECHOES OF TOMORROW TP $16.99
SEP061795 KANE VOL 6 PARTNERS TP $16.99
Get your Grist on.
Marvel Comics
AUG062033 CIVIL WAR #6 (OF 7) $2.99
Eat it, left coast! Eat it!
NOV062300 IRON MAN HYPERVELOCITY #1 (OF 6) $2.99
Adam Warren + Iron Man = A Fanboy Dream, at least for this guy.
NOV062310 NEWUNIVERSAL #2 $2.99
I’ll read this in the shop; I like Ellis an awful lot, but the first one read like a cliche factory working overtime.
AUG062066 PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #2 CW $2.99
I love you, Matt Fraction. Thank you for this.
Comics
OCT063471 SCARFACE SCARRED FOR LIFE #1 (MR) $3.99
Normally, I would mock, I really would. However, John Layman’s a heck of a nice guy and while that may not be enough to convince most people to buy a late-to-the-game sequel series for a movie whose protagonist we saw riddled with a truly ludicrous amount of firepower, the art by David Crosland looks fantastic, especially with the coloring job on them by…someone whose name I can’t recall. Give it a gander.
SEP063176 X ISLE #4 (OF 5) $2.99
Yes, they pay me, but I have to give the usual plug for the stuff I really like. So, here it is: I like X Isle a lot. The end.
Today’s Wall Street Journal features an puff piece about Virgin Comics with the hackneyed headline “Holy Heroes of Indian Lore, Batman!”, (I’m sure that link will go dead tomorrow if you’re not a subscriber). As with most things written from an “outside” perspective, Shefali Anand’s also manages to make the mistake of acting like manga and anime are some strange subsect of their respective mediums:
The U.S. comic-book business had roughly $550 million in sales in 2005, and has been enjoying a renaissance the past few years. The resurgence is driven partly by the influx of Japanese “manga” comic books and “anime” animated features, as well as characters like Pokémon and Hello Kitty. Since 2001 sales of manga comics in the U.S. have grown from roughly $10 million to $20 million to an estimated $155 million to $180 million at the end of 2005, according to pop-culture Web site ICv2.
I know it’s hard for someone who works for the Wall Street Journal to understand just how small a pond the comics game in the US is, but certainly this should have gotten a second glance:
Comic-book distributors say Virgin’s new projects are off to a surprisingly good start. While the standard new comic rarely goes for a reprint, some of Virgin’s titles have had “virtually unprecedented reorder and reprint sales,” says Jim Kuhoric, purchasing director at Diamond Comic Distributors, one of the largest distributors in the world. Three of Virgin’s four India-themed titles have made it to the top-300 ranking of best-selling comics for November, published on ICv2′s Web site. “I’ve been surprised at the strength of some of their titles,” says Milton Griepp, editor of ICv2.
Wow, top 300, huh? Turns out that their top-ranking book is John Woo’s Seven Brothers, which clocked in at #192 with sales of 9,878 – the same as Simpsons Comics, but only 471 copies ahead of Chris Sims’s favorite book, Tarot, witch of the Black Rose. So, in other words, Seven Brothers only sells about 5% more than a Jim Balent book for shutins with a serious swords-and-needle-nippled-tits fetish. Congratulations, John Woo and Garth Ennis. You have achieved a dizzying high in the industry.
I also take some umbrage with this passage:
Another boost for the industry has come from Hollywood, which has turned to comic books to create movies in recent years, such as “Spider-Man” and “Superman,” as well as some lesser-known comics like “Constantine” and “V for Vendetta.”
No, those movies don’t convert people to comics. Talk to any retailer and you’ll see that there’s not really a corollary unless they’ve done a bit of hard-selling and, in fact, some report lower sales on books like V For Vendetta after the adaptobots crank out typically lackluster Hollywood claptrap. I think every reporter who writes about comics and uses this line needs to be told once and for all that the real reason that DC and Marvel are selling more comics of late is thanks to incestuous projects like 52 and the innumerable Civil War tie-ins.
Despite my hope that Virgin Comics succeeds, if for no other reason than their offerings showing a bit of diversification for this industry, I have to say that this is shoddy reporting, most likely the result of visiting a few websites, firing off two or thre eemails, and rewriting a press release. While this probably covers one’s ass with the boss and makes the subjects happy with your efforts, this sort of writing creates an at-best incomplete picture of the medium.
From Ambush Bug Nothing Special.
