Moonstone Books’ Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider trade paperback will ship to comic shops on January 11, 2013. Written by Steven L. Frank, Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider features art by Remy Mokhtar and Bill McKay.
About Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider: A story arc so encompassing, it spans three flip comics, six Moonstone titles and several decades! A serial killer is terrorizing the city, but while The Spider investigates, all clues lead to his involvement and Domino Lady plans to stop him in his tracks. All is not as it seems, as the killer operates with equipment not of this time!
Learn more about Domino Lady here. Learn more about The Spider here. Learn more about Phases of the Moon here.
We wrap our look back at 2012 as Ric Meyers (ricmeyers.com) covers TV drama, the good and bad, and how the movies of the year fared, too. Meanwhile, it seems everyone watched DOCTOR WHO, and which network TV action show is trying a “choose your own ending” trick on Twitter?
New Year’s Resolutions aren’t for me. When I was a kid, my parents would sit my sister and me down with paper and have us write some. I suppose it helped their hangovers. Since I had to do it, I hated it.
For most of the last decade, my only resolution has been to drink more water. If that.
Still, there is a new year ahead, and that means twelve months of possibilities. It would be foolish not to have a plan to take advantage of them. So here, for better or worse, is what I want to do. We’ll see if I have the resolve to follow through.
• Try new things. When I go to the comic book store on Wednesday morning (hi, gang!), it’s easy to just pick up my usual. But just as that’s a boring way to go to a restaurant when there are so many other choices, it’s no way to approach the rack. Last year, for one example, I took great joy in Resident Alien. If you didn’t see it, I highly recommend the trade. As for me, I’m going to look for more than a DC bullet in the corner.
• Don’t support what I don’t like. As I said above, I have a tendency to just look for the DC bullet. And while I’ve expanded my repertoire over the decades I’ve read comics, I tend to add titles more than subtract them. Why do I do this? Am I afraid I’ll miss something? The Internet means I can always catch up. In the meantime, I’ll save myself time, money, and indicate my displeasure to publishers.
• Proselytize. When something is good, I’ll say so, especially if that thing isn’t getting enough attention. For example, American Horror Story: Asylum is the best television show I never hear anybody talking about. It has everything you could want in an entertainment – Nazi doctors, serial killers, demon-possessed nuns, crusading lesbian reporters, aliens from outer space – and it’s from the guys who bring you Glee, so you know everybody looks good.
• Shut up, occasionally. It’s easy for us Baby Boomers to talk incessantly about how much better we had it, back when rent was cheap, there was no HIV, and there were no rating systems. We had great movies, great comics and music that still moves us. But most of us forgot our ideals, and sold out our legacy. Patti Smith is doing Levi ads. We are in no position to tell younger people what to do.
It’s my fondest hope that I can stick to these, at least through Groundhog Day. And to keep my water bottle handy.
Okay, let’s agree that 2012 wasn’t a bad year. It wasn’t a good year, either. (Does that mean it wasn’t tired?) It just…wasn’t. It had no reality other than the one we slathered onto it, and either do minutes, seconds, hours – the whole temporal shebang. (All hands brace for Blather.)
Once upon a time…no, let’s just say once the ancestors who still live deep within us observed certain natural events and recurrences and used them to structure their lives and somewhere in the ancestral murk they gave the intervals between these events names and when a lot of intervals had passed and the universe committed us, we homo sapiens acted as though the names were real and – heck, we probably believe that they are. We place labels on the unknowable and believe the labels are the reality.
Anyone seen a unicorn lately?
There were obvious benefits to believing these illusions – this time stuff. For some of us, probably for most of us, these phantom seconds and hours and so forth help prevent our lives from being a tumble through chaos. If they weren’t useful, evolution would have dispensed with them before now. (Can you define now?)
Of course, not everything is part of an interval and maybe we should be glad. How boring would our lives be if they were ticked off by a metronome? If our happenings were utterly predictable? A little surprise occasionally brightens our…I was going to type “days,” but given the context, it might be better to use the word “existence” instead.
I’ve had some good happenings this past yea…ooops!…this past interval. Enjoyable books, movies, television. Enjoyable companions. A few laughs. New snow in the front yard and dazzling foliage in the fall…ooops again! Not “fall,” not another damn time word. (Maybe “state of existence after a warm interval”?) I’ve taken some interesting courses and finished writing a book and taught a comics writing class and traveled a bit and there is nothing much wrong with any of that. I should be grateful for all of it and I probably am.
But the interval had its negatives, too. My world is emptier without Jerry Robinson and Joe Kubert. Although it was kind of exciting too watch Hurricane Sandy shake the trees outside the window, the storm wasn’t really very friendly. And I could have done without the kinney stoones. It has been a dismal exercise in masochism to learn of the behavior of our politicians and to witness a presidential campaign that might have shamed Thomas Jefferson. Lies have been told and the telling of lies has gone unpunished and we wonder if it is now acceptable to lie. And if it is, what happens next?
That’s what we always want to know, isn’t it? What’s next? And this mystery, this next, is what none of our constructs can help us with. Not que sera sera, not “what will be will be” but rather, “what is, is.”
Waking up in an operating room, much to the surprise of the attending surgeons, Malcolm Weir frantically fights his way out of a secret government installation, located in downtown Los Angeles. Battling through a mass of armed guards and meta-gene operatives, the cyborg warrior realizes he has no memory of how he got there.
The past 11 months are gone.
With a hole in his mind, Weir must retrace his steps for the past year, fighting his way through the nearly endless horde of super powered mercenaries and assassins the government sends after him.
Travel along with Weir, facing some of the most intense action ever put to paper, along with a body count of ridiculous proportions, as he tracks down the secrets trapped in his head.
In the end, Weir must stand alone against a former friend and a squad of the deadliest killers ever created, all to learn the terrifying truth behind Project: Hardwired.
Fans of films like “Bourne Identity” or “Smoking Aces,” or the comics of Deadpool and Wolverine, will love the over-the-top science fiction action of “The Cestus Concern” by Mat Nastos.
Read what the critics are saying:
“With The Cestus Concern, Mat Nastos crafts his most daring and imaginative work to date. Thrilling and action-packed, Cestus moves at a breakneck pace. Nastos continues to show why he is the next great voice in sci-fi.” –Rob Liefeld, Creator of Deadpool, Cable, Youngblood and X-force, and founder of Image Comics
“The Cestus Concern kicks off in a bold fashion the refuses to relent. Weaving between The Six Million Dollar Man and Universal Soldier, Mat Nastos sculpts a story of high-tech science fiction that rivals masters of the genre and adds yet another successful story to his already impressive body of work.” –James Ninness, writer of Dust: Withered Earth and Macabre Rising
“Nastos delivers visceral sci-fi action from the very first page, and never lets up.” –Tyler James, writer of Red Ten and co-creator of ComixTribe.com.
“Equal parts Terminator, Frankenstein and Universal Soldier, Nastos reinvents the classic motifs, creating something truly exciting.” –Adam Lance Garcia, author of Green Lama: Unbound.
A few days ago I received an email from my friend John Jennings. John is a fantastic artist and teacher and I’ve known him for a lot of years.
I was not happy with what John had to say and let him know it. What John wrote me was a pretty detailed accounting of why some in the black comic arts community were not happy with the following line from the gallery show I’m curating for the Geppi Entertainment Museum called Milestones: African Americans in Comics. Pop Culture and Beyond.
“Up until now there has been no serious attempt to showcase African-Americans in the world of comic books, and the impact of their creative excellence, which has been a mainstay of the industry for as long as comics have been an American art form.”
Man, I went (as we say in the hood) Negro when I read that that line in the press release offended some people.
My response to John was in affect, how dare these mofo’s (white people, ask someone what that means, oh wait it’s New Years Day and you are all hung over so I’ll just tell you, motherfuckers. It means “motherfuckers”) be offended??
The reason why they were offended is because that line from the press release gives the impression that Milestones is the first exhibit of its kind. I must say, I’ve written some great kiss my ass letters in the past, but the one I wrote about those people who were “offended” was so good I thought about using it for a ComicMix article.
Before I could do that, John wrote a response that pretty much put be on blast (white people, ask someone what that means…oh I forgot New Years Day, hung over, OK “blast” in this instance means you call someone on their shit. Damn! I keep forgetting, New Year, hung over…’calling someone on their shit means you dismantle their argument), John called me on my shit.
John was right.
Milestones is the latest in a line of exhibits that feature black comic book art and artists.
I’m going to give John a forum to break down what has gone before in the Black Comic Space in a guest column here (something he’s just learning right now) as no one is better equipped than John to do so.
Those who know me are well aware that when I’m wrong, I say it.
I was wrong.
I also intend to acknowledge what has come before in any future press releases, interviews, etc. I think letting the millions of people that read me on ComicMix is a good start but I can do more and I will.
I’m excited about the show, I’m excited that Tatiana El-Khouri is co-curator, John is lending his considerable expertise and talent to the exhibition and Obama beat the living shit out of Romney.
That I was right about, was I not?
On a somber note, Peter David had a stroke the other day and all I can think of is how much I love that guy. Peter is not just a friend, he’s not just a great writer, he’s a really great guy.
Get well Peter and do it fast. We all love you dude.
We begin our look back on the Pop Culture that was in 2012 as Media Mogul Ric Meyers (ricmeyers.com) runs down the vast array of great TV comedy from the year. From CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL to HAPPY ENDINGS to SUBURGATORY, it’s been a damn good twelve months. Plus what show was downloaded illegally the most in 2012 (we are talking millions here) and how iPads are killing the toy business.
UPDATE: Peter’s site is back. Feel free to add well-wishes there.
Peter David, writer of over one thousand comics for everyone over the past four decades, has suffered a stroke. He writes on his site:
I have had a stroke. We were on vacation in Florida when I lost control of the right side of my body. I cannot see properly and I cannot move my right arm or leg. We are currently getting the extent of the damage sorted out and will report as further details become clarified.
His main website, PeterDavid.net, is getting hammered, but we’ll be updating as we have more information. He’s still planning on hitting all his deadlines, though.
Peter, of course, is well known for his comics work, holding the current record for most months consistently published. comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as X-Factor, Supergirl, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, The Dark Tower, and many others. He has also written comic book related novels, such as The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection. Furthermore, his opinion column, “But I Digress…,” has been running in the industry trade newspaper The Comic Buyers’s Guide for nearly a decade, and in that time has been the paper’s consistently most popular feature and was also collected into a trade paperback edition.
His latest prose fiction, Pulling Up Stakes, is available from Crazy 8 Press. Part one is available as an e-book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now, with part two arriving shortly. His latest comic, Richard Castle’s A Calm Before Storm, is a spinoff from the TV series Castle, starring Nathan Fillion.
Like many old people, New Year’s Eve makes me remember earlier times. When I was young. When I knew who the new bands were. When I was cool. Once one has children, one is never cool again.
There was a period of time in the mid-1970s when I dropped out of college and went to work for an antiwar magazine. We had a barter arrangement with lots of underground newspapers and magazines, so I got to read CREEM magazine, and from that and the Village Voice, I knew who all the cool bands were and where to see them in New York.
When I decided to go back to college for my degree, I kept up subscriptions to CREEM and the Voice, and it was from these that I discovered Punk.
Not the music, although also the music. No, I mean Punk, a magazine that combined my two greatest passions, comics and rock’n’roll. It was hand-lettered. It was rude and crude and hilarious. I so wanted to work there.
After I graduated, I moved to Manhattan and tried to get a job in journalism. I applied at straight places, like Time-Life, Condé Nast and Hearst. And I walked into the PUNK office, then on Tenth Avenue, to see if they would hire me. When I said I had worked for an antiwar magazine, Legs McNeil, the Resident Punk, leaped on top of a desk, pointed at me, and yelled that I was a Commie.
That didn’t stop them from letting me do some typing for them, when they needed labels for a mailing. And it didn’t stop me from becoming friends with Legs and John Holmstrom, the editor.
John is, in my opinion, the most ripped-off man in comics. I mean, lots of early comic book creators were screwed financially by their publishers. And lots of early comic book creators have been imitated by the artists who followed them. John, however, created a style that was part Harvey Kurtzman (a mentor of his), part Bazooka Joe, part Basil Wolverton, but uniquely his own. In no time at all, and with not even an acknowledgement or thanks, he was co-opted by every art director at every publisher and every ad agency in the world.
But John was more than an innovator. He was a great patron of new talent. Not only did Punk do stories on new bands, but they published work by new cartoonists. For example, John was one of the first person to publish Peter Bagge.
It has long been my contention that the comics and rock’n’roll share the characteristics that both are uniquely American art forms, but only gained respect when English people did them. John combined them in astonishingly simple ways, by drawing his interviews, or staging fumetti stories that starred Richard Hell, Debbie Harry, the Ramones and Andy Warhol, among others.
It’s not just nostalgia at Auld Lang Syne that has me thinking about how cool Punk was. Harper Collins has just published a big, beautiful hard cover volume, The Best of Punk Magazine that brings those late 1970s/early 1980s days back to life. It’s on much slicker paper than the original, but it still has the brattiness that made the original so much fun.
It’s a book that will get up on a desk and yell at you, and then bum money for cigarettes and beer.
I already said in my discussion of Amazing Spider-Man 698 that I had utter faith in Dan Slott. Yes, the plot twist he’s spun here is, at the least, controversial. It proves, simply, that he’s got what it takes to sell real estate. This is a story he’s been setting up for several years. Slowly, deliberately, under our noses. He’s taken an almost standard plot twist, seen in countless comics, movies and TV shows, and built it into a firestorm.
And I want to go to the people who don’t like it and take their comics away. because if they don’t like this storyline, they just don’t like comics.
I already said in 
