Over at Comic Book Resources, Rick Remender chats it up about his critically praised, post-apocalyptic superhero saga The End League, as well as his other post-apocalyptic saga, the creator-owned Fear Agent series.
"I guess I’m a bit bleak in my worldview. That and I always tend to make sure Earth is in a state of shit,” quipped Remender. “I like post-apocalyptic stories, what are you gonna do? I like hopelessness. It brings out the grit inside a character. Might as well get right to it and see how someone reacts when faced with a stacked deck and insurmountable obstacles. In my shitty opinion, that’s the good stuff. Unlike most books of this nature, these characters are all dealing with the prospect of real extinction that’s always waiting around every corner.”
The eternal optimist, eh? No fear, though. Remender goes on to discuss his work on other projects big and small – literally – including his run on DC’s Atom, as well as an upcoming Ultraman-meets-Truman Show project (his description, not ours) titled Gigantic.
Camden New Journalreports on a “market trader” (is that like a day trader, or does it mean a professional?) whose graphic novel Brodie’s Law has been bought by Hollywood for the proverbial pile of money.
Comic Book Resourcestalks to Daniel Way about the Origins of Wolverine…well, this year’s version, anyway.
A high school teacher in Connecticut has been forced to resign after giving a female first-year student a copy of Eightball #22, which her parents found inappropriate (to put it mildly).
Comics Reporterlists all of the recent firings at Wizard, among other comings and goings at various comics-publishing outfits.
R. Sikoryak’s Dostoyevsky Comics, an adaptation of Crime and Punishment staring a Dick Sprang Batman and originally published in Drawn & Quarterly #3 in 2000, has been posted on the web.
Amazon Dailyinterviews Nick Abadzis, author of Laika.
The New York Times Magazine last weekend started its serialization of Dan Clowes’s comic Mister Wonderful, in its “Funny Pages” section.
AnimationInsiderinterviews manga expert and popularizer Fred Schodt.
The Fresno Beetalks to local broadcaster Dale Berry, who creates graphic novels in his spare time.
New York Magazine has a ten-page excerpt from Gipi’s Notes for a War Story.
Publishers Weeklychatted with David Michaelis about his upcoming biography of Charles Schulz, Schulz and Peanuts.
Publishers Weekly has a preview ofLegend of the Dark Crystal, Col. 1: The Garthim Wars.
PW also interviews Jonathan Hickman, author of The Nightly News.
Comic Book Resourceschats with Mark Guggenheim about his Oni Press series Resurrection.
To celebrate the publication of their collection Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Morality, creators Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chang have done thirteen separate interviews, all published the same day. Links to all of them are on Cliff Chang’s blog.
South Carolina’s The State rounds up recent reader reaction to Tom Batuik’s deeply depressing current storyline in Funky Winkerbean. [via Comics Reporter]
Journalista!takes aim at comics’ poster-boy for getting out of the house more often, Dave Sim. (And what is Sim doing these days? Didn’t Cerebus end several years ago now?)
A truck ran into Oni Press’s wall/window, but everyone there is fine.
Wizardinterviews Gerald Way, who writes Umbrella Academy (and also has a band or something).
Eye on Comicswonders what happened to the promised Adam Hughes All Star Wonder Woman.
Arowette’s Diarypresents the Dan Didio Advisory & Warning System. Is your comic at risk of Rape, Death, or Emo?
The Icarus Comics blog notes that some manga categories (for adults, even!) previously little known here are starting to come out in the US market. The possibly not-so-good news is that they’re having to be in Diamond’s “Adult” section since they actually have sexual content.
Comics Reviews
BookgasmreviewsThe Architect, by Mike Baron and Andie Tong.
Los Angeles City Beatreviews Tom Neely’s The Blot.
Marvel Comics is having a costume contest on their website, to be judged by fans. The winner (who gets a Handbook-style page in some random comic) will be announced, appropriately, on Halloween. And the guy to beat this year is…pipsqueak Wolverine!
Scripps News talked to Mike Carey about his “real” novels, like The Devil You Know, and his graphic novels, like Re-Gifters.
Comic Book Resourcesinterviews Amy Kim Ganter, who creates American Manga.
Now you have no excuse not to hang up your super-suit…
Comics Links
Eddie Campbell writes about speech balloons (including his differences of opinion with Bryan Talbot).
Yann Martel, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Life of Pi, has been sending a book and cover letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper every week for the past three months. This week, the book he sent and wrote about was Art Spiegelman’s Maus.
Viper Comics, not content with making comics I’ve never heard of, is branching out into clothes I won’t wear.
Comic Book Resourcestalks to Andy Smith, artist of Stormwatch PHD.
Fantagraphics Books has a regular Shoot-Out party, in which they run out into the woods, dump a pile of old monitors, lawn mowers, and TVs, and then blow them to pieces with assorted firearms. Apparently, this is not precisely legal. Wow, if you’d told me there was a comics publisher that shot up electronics regularly, Fantagraphics would not be the one I guessed…
Comics Worth Readingisn’t sure if there’s any market for comics mini-series any more.
Associated ContentinterviewsDesert Peach creator Donna Barr.
As I type this, it’s still Friday, which was New Comics Day back in my own misspent youth. Very vaguely in honor of that, enjoy this picture of a Milk & Cheese magnet.
Comics Links
Jonathan Ross, British TV personality and famous snogger of Neil Gaiman, has an article in the Guardian about why he loved Steve Ditko. It also serves as a teaser for Ross’s documentary, In Search of Steve Ditko, appearing on BBC4 Sunday night at 9.
Comic Book Resourcesreprints Diamond’s charts for market share and sales for August in the direct market.
Omar Karindu, at Comics Should Be Good, argues that it was always stupid when comic-book superheroes fought real-world dictators, terrorists, and the like.
Mike Sterling ponders the state of Spider-Man’s marriage, and whether anyone but Joe Quesada was every strongly against it.
Nerds with Kidsinterviews Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer about their work on the kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba.
The Washington Postlooks at comics designed to be viewed on cellphones.
Comics Reviews
The Joplin Independentchecks out the New Look Betty & Veronica.
PopMattersreviews the last ten issues of Strangers in Paradise.
The ACLU has a new online comic to explain its mission: Defenders of Freedom. (I would have used a panel from one of their stories to illustrate this post but – irony of ironies – it’s left-click disabled, locked down tight by proprietary software. So, instead, you get the very first Google image for the search “defender of freedom,” because Andrew Wheeler is all about the random fun. It’s from this page, by the way.)
CBR also interviewsAction Philosophers! creator Fred Van Lente.
Wizardchats with Jim Shooter, once and future writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Occasional Superheroine, at the Baltimore Comic-Con, found the crowd incredibly conservative and unwilling to look at any materials outside the usual Punchy McSuper-Dude “mainstream.”
Kevin Jones of Culture Magazine has an essay on Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Blankets.
Comix Talkinterviews Krishna Sadasivam, creator of the webcomic PC Weenies.
They’re sold out now, but for a brief, shining moment, the world had a chance to buy knitted Hellboy dolls. (Figures? Plushes? What do you call these things?) [via Newsarama]
The Beat lists Diamond graphic novel sales charts from 2006 and 2007 (to date).
The Harlan Ellison/Fantagraphics legal matter just will not die…even after the supposedly final settlement, Ellison has now balked at posting the required-by-the-agreement 500-word rebuttal by Fantagraphics’s Gary Groth to three specific claims Ellison made about Groth. The unposted statement, and Ellison’s lawyer’s “not gonna do it” letter, are in the middle of this long post at The Beat.
Comics Reporterinterviews Warren Craghead. (No, I didn’t know who he was, either. But CR likes him…)
The Bookseller (the UK’s magazine of bookselling) recently reported that UK manga publishers have had to beg the big chains over there to expand the space devoted to manga. Either the UK market is vastly different from the US, or Waterstone’s just isn’t that interested in making great piles of money…
Comics Reviews
The Joplin Independentreviews the Marvel comics adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
Over at Comic Book Resources, Rick Remender chats it up about his critically praised, post-apocalyptic superhero saga The End League, as well as his other post-apocalyptic saga, the creator-owned Fear Agent series.
