GalleyCatreports that Karin Slaughter, a popular thriller writer from the UK, and Oni Press are teaming up to create Slaughterhouse Graphic Novels, which will adapt prose fiction into comics form. The idea is to emulate Stephen King’s Dark Tower, and not Isaac Asimov’s I-Bots, I think…
(By the way, Slaughter is our covergirl for this installment.)
Comics Fodderwants to see the return of footnotes to superhero comics – you know, the little boxes that said things like “The Fabulous Sheep-Man, last seen in ish #3,141 – Parsimonious Pete.” I think that reviewer needs to look up the phrase “continuity porn,” because he’s soaking in it.
Exclaim!, a Canadian music publication, looks at DC’s new Minx imprint.
Brian Cronin, at Comics Should Be Good, makes fun of every single one of Marvel’s October covers.
First Second announced today (in a press-release e-mail, so I don’t have a link) that they’ll be collecting Paul Pope’s cool THB series in 2009 as a color, four-volume, 1200-page set under the title Total THB. But, before that, they’ll have a new Pope series for young readers, Battling Boy, published in two simultaneous volumes in 2008.
The Black Diamond Detective Agency is a bit of an anomaly for Eddie Campbell – it’s a book he wrote and illustrated alone that nevertheless is not concerned with stories or storytelling in any way. Campbell’s probably best-known for illustrating From Hell from Alan Moore’s famously copious scripts, but most of his work has been writing and drawing his own stories, sometimes with help from a loose band of local Australian cartoonists.
His two long-running sequences are both deeply about story: Bacchus consists of the tales of the few remaining Greek gods in the modern world, and contains many tales-within-tales, retold stories, and other storytelling conceits. The “Alec MacGarry” stories are even more entwined with stories, since they’re Campbell’s thinly-veiled autobiography about his own life as a comics creator, and are, at their heart, about the process of creating art and stories.
So it’s a bit odd to find that Black Diamond is a conventional detective story – a murder mystery, to be precise – set at the turn of the 20th century in the American Midwest. (That last is also surprising since Campbell is a Scot long resident in Australia – middle America isn’t his part of the world at all.) The story begins with a mysterious man in Lebanon, Missouri witnessing the explosion of a train during a demonstration and then helping to pull the wounded from the wreckage. He’s soon arrested and questioned, since the boxes of nitro used to blow up the train have his name on them.
It gets more complicated from there, but the focus is on that man of several names and on the investigation run by the Black Diamond Agency (which stands in for the real-life Pinkertons) of the explosion and related events. And, showing its origin as a screenplay, there’s a Big Secret at the end, which will be familiar to many – we’ve seen a story much like this many times before.
MTV Newstalked to Todd McFarlane about the new Spawn movie he’s financing himself. (Wait…isn’t he also claiming he’s bankrupt? Now I’m confused.)
The LA Timeshas noticed that the dying-by-degrees traditional comic-book market isn’t looking quite as sickly as it had been recently.
The inferior4+1reports on a DC Comics press release which says that Walter Simonson will be writing a new comics series based on the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft.
PopMatters has an interesting (by which I mean silly) theory that Generation X loves Transformers because it symbolizes their wish to “transform” into adults. (That would be more interesting if they meant the old Marvel series Generation X, but they’re talking about the Americans born in the late ’60 and early ’70s.)
The San Diego Union-Tribune has an article on comics today to get ready for some kind of event happening in their fair city later this week.
Well, it’s a book, now. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows went on sale at the crack of Saturday, and the world will never be the same. (Or something.) For this link round-up, I’ll corral the stories into groups, by theme, proving that there are only about a dozen potential Potter stories, each of which is being endlessly recapitulated around the world. (And thus I’ll refute Bishop Berkley.)
The last few “anticipation” stories from before the launch:
PopMatterswonders if all of the Potter-readers will become writers. (Because what the world needs is more wanna-be writers.)
Associated Content, writing on Friday, says the book is already on sale.
The Free Lance-Starannounces that Fredericksburg shops are ready for the onslaught of young muggles.
Comic Book Resourcestalks to Eric Powell about The Goon.
The eighth week of “X-Position” from Comic Book Resources is an interview with Peter David about what’s going on in the X-books. (Silly, CBR, don’t you know that exposition will never wash away the sins of mankind?)
Comic Book Resourcesalso chats with Dynamite Entertainment Publisher Nick Barrucci about their upcoming Alex Ross/Jim Krueger book Superpowers.
SciFi Wireinterviews Ellen Datlow about her new anthology (with Terri Windling) The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales.
Amazon’s blog has a quick phone conversation with Austin Grossman, author of Soon I Will Be Invincible, in the middle of his tour.
Transmissions from Wintermuteinterviews short story writer Benjamin Rosenbaum.
Jennifer Fallon loves Wile E. Coyote, and doesn’t care who knows it. (She also lists Chuck Jones’s very interesting rules for Roadrunner cartoons, which show just how much of a brilliant formal exercise those shorts were.)
SF Signalhas posted the final lists for their Harry Potter Outreach Program, designed to drag Potter readers (kicking and screaming, if necessary) over to the SF/Fantasy shelves and get them to read more stuff that they’ll like.
Adventures in SciFi Publishing’s 27th podcast features an interview with Sarah Beth Durst, author of the new young-readers novel Into the Wild. (And some other things, like another installment of “Ask an Author” with Tobias Buckell.)
I may have to do another one of these round-ups on Monday to get the post-publication stuff (and the reviews that won’t annoy Rowling by their very existence), but, after that, I never want to hear the words "Harry Potter" in my life again. (Above, Mr. Potter illustrates my mood.)
CNN just realized that Deathly Hallows publishes tomorrow and they haven’t run a bland “it’s coming” story yet. Problem fixed.
Blogcritics has one of those “it doesn’t matter what happens in the outside world, I’m going to have my own special moment with Deathly Hallows and no one can stop me” pieces, this time by Katie McNeill.
Inside Higher Ed goes inside baseball with a story about the media coverage of Harry Potter. And then I comment on a story about the media coverage, here! Coming soon: meta-comments on my comments, and a spiral into utter madness.
Nicholas Clee, at the Guardian blog, is overjoyed to see arrogant UK supermarket chain Asda brought to heel by the power of J.K. Rowling.
Michael Burstein is an observant jew, and has been trying to figure out a way to get a copy of Deathly Hallows on publication day (which is also Shabbat, when engaging in commerce is forbidden). Any particularly clever rabbis out there want to help him?
The Belfast Telegramnotes that Deathly Hallows goes on sale at midnight tonight. (Doesn’t a “Belfast Telegram” sound like a euphemism for something – like maybe a Molotov cocktail through the letter-slot?)
The Baltimore Sunreports on the odd people who are following Rowling’s demands and not opening their early-release packages of Deathly Hallows.
The Edmonton Sunwatches bookstores batten down the hatches and prepare to be boarded.
The Times of Indianotes that a lot of people will want this book. Thank you, Commander Obvious.
Fox Newshas a transcript of the “Big Story” segment that talked about the Deathly Hallows internet leak. Has Bill O’Reilly blamed it on Hillary yet?
Publishers Weekly’s Book Maven blog thinks that Michiko Kakutani’s New York Times review of Deathly Hallows was scrubbed of spoilers after initial publication.
Speaking of the Times, only they would be so full of themselves as to actually use the phrase “muggle soirees” in a headline.
E! Newsthinks that it’s very sad that the mean ol’ New York Times reviewed a book before the author said it was OK to do it. Mean ol’ Times!
Reuters tries to sum up the entire history of Harry Potter in one article.
The San Francisco Chronicleobsesses about whether Harry and Voldemort live or die in Deathly Hallows. (Of course Voldemort dies, silly, it’s that kind of book. Harry, on the other hand, isn’t a sure bet either way, though he’ll probably pull through, merely “greviously injured.”)
Immediately after guaranteeing that they’ll have stock on Deathly Hallows by giving a groveling, French-style apology to Ms. Rowling, the British supermarket chain Asda has announced that they’ll be selling it for £5 – roughly $10, and solidly below their own cost.
The Huffington Post apparently thinks that reviewing a book before the on-sale date is a hanging offense. Now, I’m happy to beat up on the New York Times as much as anyone – maybe even more so – but the job of a newspaper is to seek out news stories and report on them, which is exactly what they’ve done here.
The Scotsmanreports on a hotel where you can get “Mrs. Weasley’s breakfast” tomorrow. (Again, that sounds like a euphemism for something I don’t waant to know about. "Darling, can you come over here? The dog’s got into Mrs. Weasley’s breakfast again, and I need a hand cleaning up.")
