Tagged: Dark Horse

2009 Harvey Awards: ‘All-Star Superman’ repeats win; ‘Umbrella Academy’, ‘Kirby’, Al Jaffee win 2 each

2009 Harvey Awards: ‘All-Star Superman’ repeats win; ‘Umbrella Academy’, ‘Kirby’, Al Jaffee win 2 each

  • News
  • October 11, 2009

With this many twos, you’d think the Harvey was Harvey Dent.

The 2009 Harvey Awards were given out tonight at the Baltimore Comic-Con in a ceremony MC’d by double nominee Scott Kurtz. Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art.

All-Star Superman repeated the win for best continuing or limited series, with Grant Morrison picking up the Best Writer award. Last year’s best writer winner, Brian K. Vaughn, picked up the award for Best Single Issue for Y: The Last Man #60. In the two-time winners, The Umbrella Academy won for best artist Gabriel Ba and best colorist Dave Stewart, the Mark Evanier biography Kirby: King Of Comics won for best historical/journalistic and excellence in presentation, and Al Jaffee won for best cartoonist and a special award for humor in comics.

Special awards were given by the Hero Initiative: the Humanitarian Award was given to Neal Adams for his years fighting for creators, and Baltimore Comic-Con organizer Marc Nathan received a surprise award just because he puts on a great show.

Nominations for the Harvey Awards are selected exclusively by creators – those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the comics field. They are the only industry awards both nominated and selected by the full body of comic book professionals. This was the fourth year for the Harvey Awards in Baltimore, MD.

The full ballot is listed below, with winners listed in bold. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

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New Alan Moore zine, free Charles Vess, submit to Viz, and Gravel to film: ComicMix Quick Picks for 10/9/09

New Alan Moore zine, free Charles Vess, submit to Viz, and Gravel to film: ComicMix Quick Picks for 10/9/09

All the quick news while shooting at the moon and waiting for stories from Baltimore Comic-Con to come in…

  • Alan Moore is launching Dodgem Logic, “the 21st century’s first underground magazine
    from his home town of Northampton, a community that is right at the
    geographical, political and economic heart of the country; one which
    has half its high street boarded up and is at present dying on its
    arse, just like everywhere else.” Josie Long, Graham Linehan, Kev O’Neill, Melinda Gebbie, Steve Aylett, Leah Moore and John Reppion will be contributing. (Hat tip: Cory Doctorow.)
  • Dark Horse Comics just announced that, in honor of their imminent publication of Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess
    in December, they are offering the entire book online for free viewing for an indefinite time. All two hundred-plus pages of Drawing Down the Moon can be found on the Dark Horse website.
  • VIZ Media is now accepting submissions and pitches for original comics. Interesting. I think this is a change in policy and direction.
  • I almost don’t believe this story from Superhero Hype and Variety about Legendary Pictures picking up the film rights to the Warren Ellis series Gravel, just because I would automatically assume Bleeding Cool would have that story first. Tsk, tsk… Rich is slowing down. (Warren: we have just the guy for the role for you. Honest.)
  • And in case you didn’t hear, Archie’s an imaginary bigamist.

Anything else in the news? Consider this an open thread.

ComicMix Quick Picks – September 23, 2009

ComicMix Quick Picks – September 23, 2009

Presented for your approval are these, the stories we didn’t get to yesterday.

What else did we miss? Consider this an open thread.

Comics (Company) Buyer’s Guide

Comics (Company) Buyer’s Guide

  • News
  • September 3, 2009

Let’s review the scorecard:

  • Disney just picked up Marvel, and already owns the assets from CrossGen.
  • AOL Time Warner, through Warner Bros., owns DC Comics and subsidiary imprints Wildstorm, Vertigo, and CMX; and has a distribution and publishing arrangement with Archie for some characters.
  • IDW is 50% owned by Starz.
  • Dark Horse has a first look deal with NBC/Universal.

Who’s left on the table?

On the movie studio side: Viacom/Paramount, Fox/NewsCorp, and Sony/Columbia. MGM and United Artists are a bit small to go shopping for their own comics company, although they could set up first look deals.

On the comics side: BOOM! must be looking very tempting. Dark Horse could still be bought. Image– who would you deal with? Top Cow, possibly. Dynamic Forces licenses stuff from movie studios, not the other way around. Avatar is mostly writiers who probably control their sub rights, so there’s little to be gained in an acquisition. Who after that? Slave Labor? Archaia? Aspen? Archie? Radical? Top Shelf?

My guess for a sleeper acquistion? Oni probably looks tempting to somebody.

But that’s just my take on it. What about you? What do you think the next big move is going to be?

50 comics facts about the Class of 2013

50 comics facts about the Class of 2013

  • News
  • September 2, 2009

Every year, Beloit College puts together a list of facts regarding the mindset of the class entering college this Fall—the Class of 2013. Their list, as always, is well worth a read, but this is ComicMix, and we’re here to talk about comics, by gum.

So as we get ready to send them off to college, we wondered: what constitutes the comics status quo for them? What’s normal to these kids born in 1991 (he asks, knowing that being born in 1986 puts him in largely the same boat)? So glad you asked.

  1. The guy who did the above strip had already ended his daily strip and retired by the time these freshmen started reading newspapers.
  2. There has never been a Miracleman (or Marvelman) comic published in their lifetime.
  3. They have no idea who Don Thompson or Carol Kalish were.
  4. Gambit has always been on the X-Men.
  5. Spider-Man was always married to Mary Jane… until One More Day.
  6. There wasn’t a DC multiverse until the end of Infinite Crisis.
  7. Wally West was always the Flash, and his first sidekick was Impulse.
  8. Adam West has never been Batman—he’s best known as the mayor on Family Guy.
  9. Wolverine never wore a brown costume, and has always had a solo book.
  10. Barbara Gordon has always been in a wheelchair.
  11. Sandman has always been that pale-skinned goth guy with the hair.
  12. Batman has had three Robins: Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne.
  13. Lex Luthor has always been a businessman.
  14. Image Comics has always existed.
  15. So has Wizard Magazine.
  16. New Mutants was a short-lived series from 2003-2004, until the recent relaunch.
  17. Hank McCoy’s always been blue and furry.
  18. Elektra has always been dead.
  19. Frank Miller is the guy who did Sin City, and he never worked with Klaus Janson.
  20. There’s never been a character named “Streaky the Supercat.”
  21. The only composite Batman-Superman was a giant robot.
  22. The original Dove has always been dead.
  23. Thanos has always been searching for the Infinity Gems, so he can impress Death.
  24. Death has always been a goth chick.
  25. Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes has always been War Machine.
  26. S.H.I.E.L.D. has always stood for Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage Logistics Directorate.
  27. Kyle Rayner has always been a Green Lantern.
  28. Starman has always worn goggles and a leather jacket.
  29. John Romita. Jr. has always been known as a regular penciller for Amazing Spider-Man. John Romita, Sr. never was.
  30. Ghost Rider was Danny Ketch.
  31. Jean-Luc Picard was the first captain of the Enterprise.
  32. Cerebus the Aardvark was always a classic.
  33. Grendel has always been a Dark Horse title, except for that DC crossover.
  34. Cassie Sandsmark was the first Wonder Girl.
  35. Roy Harper was only known as Arsenal up until the current volume of Justice League of America.
  36. There’s never been a First or Eclipse Comics. Comico only did some of those soft-core Elementals books.
  37. There were originally four Justice League titles on the stands.
  38. The original Teen Titans were comprised of a de-aged Atom (Ray Palmer), Risk, Argent, Captain Marvel, Jr., Omen, Prysm, Fringe, Arsenal, and Joto.
  39. Julia Carpenter was the original Spider-Woman.
  40. The two Avengers teams were the East Coast and West Coast branches. None of this New, Mighty, Dark, Pet, and Caramel Covered.
  41. There’s always been a comic called Love and Rockets.
  42. The superhero cartoons of choice were Darkwing Duck and Fox’s X-Men. For live action, it was all about the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
  43. Kraven the Hunter has always been dead.
  44. Northstar has always been out of the closet.
  45. Kevin Conroy has always been the animated voice of Batman.
  46. Jim Shooter was the guy behind Valiant, then Defiant, and then he wrote the Legion for a while. Wait, he was at Marvel, too?
  47. Phoenix is Rachel Summers, not Jean Grey.
  48. Karate Kid was Ralph Macchio, and Ralph Macchio was the guy editing X-Men.
  49. There have always been Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novels.
  50. Disney never had a major successful comic book franchise.

What’s yours?

(Alan Kistler and Glenn Hauman contributed to this list.)

Review: B.P.R.D., Vol. 10: The Warning by Mignola, Arcudi, and Davis

Review: B.P.R.D., Vol. 10: The Warning by Mignola, Arcudi, and Davis

B.P.R.D. Vol. 10: The Warning
Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi; Art by Guy
Davis
Dark Horse Comics, May 2009, $17.95

[[[The Warning]]] is the tenth volume
collecting the adventures of the [[[Hellboy]]]-less Bureau for Paranormal Research
and Defense, and the first in what the creators are calling the “[[[Scorched Earth
Trilogy]]].” The afterword by co-writer John Arcudi claims that events will get
bigger and more dangerous from here – though he does note that this volume
includes, among other thing, “[name withheld] gets kidnapped, … entire fleet of
helicopters gets wiped out, and gigantic robots trample [name withheld] into
rubble.” And previous volumes of this series (and, of course, of the related Hellboy)
have been no slouch in the near-Armageddon sweepstakes – particularly [[[The Black Flame]]]. That’s a lot of promise, but Mignola’s fictional
world does always teeter on the verge of utter supernatural chaos, in his very
Lovecraftian way. It would be wise to take Arcudi at his word.

The Warning begins with the team going
in two directions at once, urgently following up recent events – Abe Sapien
leads an assault squad out into the snowy mountains to try to find and retrieve
the Wendigo-possessed former leader of their team, and the others have a séance
to contact the mysterious ‘30s costumed hero Lobster Johnson, whom they think
will have information about the robed man taunting and manipulating firestarter
Liz Sherman in her mind. But neither one of those leads works out as the
[[[B.P.R.D.]]] hopes, and, before long, they’re face-to-face with another
high-powered menace and seeing another city being assaulted by giant robots.

And yet, remember that note from Arcudi. The plot of The
Warning turns out to be just a warm-up; the antagonists here
are not the true enemies of the B.P.R.D. Near the end, that mysterious man
claims that he isn’t their real antagonist, either. The B.P.R.D. is
fumbling in the dark in The Warning, unsure of what the
real menace is, let alone how to stop it. But they go on, because that’s what
they do.

The Warning is a great installment
of a top-rank adventure series, filled with wonder and terror, eyeball kicks
and quiet character moments. It’s a magnificent brick in a more magnificent
wall, but it’s no place to start. If you haven’t read B.P.R.D.
before, go back to the beginning with [[[Hollow Earth
]]]– or, even better, go back to the beginning of Hellboy
with [[[Seed of Destruction]]]. But, if you enjoy adventure
stories with characters who don’t wear skin-tight outfits,
you should have discovered Mignola’s world by now.

Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional
for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science
Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He¹s been
reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal,
mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.

Publishers who would like to submit books
for review should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew
Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.

An Unshaven Rant: Should I worry about the 2009 Chicago Comic-Con?

An Unshaven Rant: Should I worry about the 2009 Chicago Comic-Con?

  • News
  • August 4, 2009

Hello ComicMix dwellers (and loyal FOMAFers…). I come to you today a bit… deflated. Why you ask? Because I just took a sneaky-peak over at the Chicago Comicon’s exhibitor list and program schedule. Long story (…forthcoming…) short? It’s not looking great on paper. This angers and frustrates me to no end, but I digress. The more I get angry at this, the brighter the silver lining comes creeping in. Confused? Now, I ask unto you my loyal readers, all seven of you, to take this brief journey with me on the anger-train. After we reach the end of the journey, you’ll see why our last stop is in Happyville.

The Backstory

The Chicago Comicon (as long as I’ve known it, mind you) was built on the ‘Wizard World’ platform. (Yes, I know it predates Wizard, but that’s not how I experienced it.) Growing up on comics in the 90’s meant Wizard was my one-stop shop for all the hip and trendy news about comic books… whilst the “internets” was still in it’s primordial-ooze phase. My first con, sadly, was right prior to my senior year in high school. Even back then (and if you ask Glenn, or Mike, or Russ, or really, a lot of people patrolling this site) it wasn’t that long ago, this con was pretty darned cool. I’m a mid-westerner mind you, so trekking to SDCC is NOT in any Chicago-kid’s budget. But it never mattered. SDCC was always at the beginning of the summer, and Chicago’s was at the end. There was enough time for people to calm down, and as Dan DiDio says (said) every year… “Chicago’s con is always about the books. Always about the fans.”

Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image all put up HUGE booths where fans could grab free schwag like buttons, posters, and bookmarks. Samples and previews of forthcoming issues adorned tables behind which our favorite creators were signing piles of their own penned materials. Beside these mammoth booths sat smaller publishers, just as happy to show off their wares. And of course beyond that lay the monstrous sea of dealers, and beyond that still, the indie and mainstream friendly confines of Artist Alley. When time came that one could be sick of this massive room of geekocity, there sat a bevvy of panels where the pros came to sit and talk to their fans nearly face to face on a multitude of topics. Some came for the sneak peaks of the years books to come, some (like me) came for the free hints and tricks to learn in the schooling panels, and some came for screenings of geek-laden cinema. All in all, it was wrapping up Christmas Channukkah, my birthday, and your birthday all in one long weekend.

And every year since, for the next 7 years, I went as a fan. Last year I went for the first time as a “semi-professional (having published a graphic novelette in 2008. Over the course of these last 8 years now, looking onto my 9th, I’ve begun to see my “Rome” begin to crumble. (more…)

#SDCC: Semi-liveblogging the Eisner Awards

  • News
  • July 25, 2009

The 21st annual Eisner Awards, the “Oscars” of the comics industry, will be given out at a gala ceremony at a brand-new location: the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront. This year’s special them is “Comics and All That Jazz.” Scheduled presenters include writer/actors Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (Reno 911, Balls of Fury), acclaimed comics creators Jeff Smith and Terry Moore, actor/comedian Patton Oswalt, actor/musician/writer Bill Mumy, actress/musician Jane Wiedlin, and G4’s Blair Butler, with many more to be announced.

Other prestigious awards to be given out include the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, and the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. The master of ceremonies is Bongo Comics’ Bill Morrison.

We’re going to cover it as best as we can here… boldfacing the winners as they are announced.

8:46: Neil Gaiman tweets: “on my way to present eisner award. Car just pulled over for illegal left turn. Will we make it?”

9:03: Heidi MacDonald tweets: “No phone coverage in Indigo Ballroom so NO live Twitter Eisner Awards. #techfail”

Hmm. This will make life challenging. Time to get a goat to sacrifice…

9:12: Neil made it.

9:14: First winner of the night: Best Publication For Kids: Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC)

9:16: Best Publication for Teens/Tweens: Coraline.

9:28: Robot6 enters the liveblogging! And they report:

Best Coloring: Dave Stewart, Abe Sapien: The Drowning, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)

Best Lettering: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best webcomic: Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil

9:45: Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team: Guy Davis, BPRD (Dark Horse)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist: Jill Thompson, Magic Trixie, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

9:51: Best Cover Artist: James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)

9:54: Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism: Comic Book Resources, produced by Jonah Weiland
(www.comicbookresources.com)

10:06: Running back and forth posting here and tweeting each award individually is exhausting… but it’s all worth it for you. :-*

Best Comics-Related Book: Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier (Abrams)

Best Publication Design: Hellboy Library Editions, designed by Cary Grazzini and Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)

10:14: Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books: Creepy Archives, by various (Dark Horse)

10:17: I’m soooooo glad my iPhone app is updating me on all the Eisner winners.

10:24: Best Humor Publication: Herbie Archives, by “Shane O’Shea” (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material: The Last Musketeer, by Jason (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan: Dororo, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)

10:47: Jane Wiedlin tweets: “Im @ Eisner Awards getting ready 2 present. Major wardrobe malfunction in pedicab on way here. Front zipper burst on dress exposed all 2 all!”

10:55: Whoops, missed some:

  • Tate’s Comics in Fort Lauderdale won the Spirit of Retailing Award.
  • Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award presented by Mike Royer — winner is Eleanor Davis, writer/artist of Stinky

Hall of fame inductees:

11:11: The home stretch! Here we go!

Best Writer: Bill Willingham, Fables, House of Mystery (Vertigo/DC)

Best Writer/Artist: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library (Acme)

Best New Series: Invincible Iron Man, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca (Marvel)

Best Limited Series: Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

11:15: Best Continuing Series: All Star Superman. by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)

Continuing?!? Since when? Take it away and give it to Miss Congeniality. (That’s Andrew Pepoy, right?)

11:22: Best Short Story: “Murder He Wrote,” by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #14 (Bongo)

Hey, Andrew did get an award right after I said to give him one! I promise to use my powers only for good…

11:33: The last batch:

Best Anthology: Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative Art Inspired by the Lyrics and Music of Tori Amos, edited by Rantz Hoseley (Image)

Best Reality-Based Work: What It Is, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint: Hellboy Library Edition, vols. 1 and 2, by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)

Best Graphic Album—New: Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

Thanks to the liveblogging of Heidi MacDonald and JK Parkin at CBR and all the various Twitter folks who were eyes and ears for us tonight. I owe all of you. And I’m really glad I didn’t have to pay for the Eisner Award iPhone app.

Full list of nominees with winners bolded after the jump.

(more…)

#SDCC: Metalocalypse’s Murderous Multimedia Mayhem

#SDCC: Metalocalypse’s Murderous Multimedia Mayhem

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

Those of us who would Do Anything for Dethklok will now have
many more opportunities to share the love. (Why, yes, I do have a cartoon crush
on Nathan Explosion. He can “teach me who rock” anytime.) The creators of the
Adult Swim show Metalocalypse are preparing an assault on several platforms.

If you’ve actually bothered to read the Adult Swim bumps
instead of fast-forwarding past them on your DVR, you already know that in
Season 3, episodes of Metalocalypse will double in length to 30 minutes, and
the second Dethklok album is scheduled for this fall.

On Wednesday, Konami announced that they’ll be putting out the downloadable videogame
Metalocalypse: Dethgame, which will be available for Xbox and PlayStation. The soundtrack
will feature tracks from both the old and the new Dethklok albums. Game creators are promising a
thrilling and an exceptionally gory time as the player takes on the role of a
Klokateer, one of the band’s many masked minions. Here’s hoping that they will
be able to fulfill that promise: a very early version of the game is currently
being showcased at San Diego, and one IGN reviewer is already profoundly
unimpressed. Apparently, gameplay now mainly consists of urinating on, brutally beating, and slicing up Dethklok fans. Hey, that may be enough for some people.

Also on Wednesday, the one-shot The Goon vs. Dethklok hit
comic book store shelves. That was quickly followed by Thursday’s
announcement from Dark Horse that a Metalocalypse comic book series is in the
works. The Dark Horse San Diego Comic-Con panel takes place later today, and no doubt more
details will be released at that time.

Review: Goats: Infinite Typewriters by Jonathan Rosenberg

Review: Goats: Infinite Typewriters by Jonathan Rosenberg

Goats: Infinite Typewriters
Jonathan Rosenberg
Del Rey, June 2009, $14.00

It’s not true that every webcomic will eventually have a
book, even if it seems that way. There are some projects that even [[[Lulu]]] will
choke on; some things that are too short and obscure and just plain pointless
to be immortalized in cold print. But, with magazines and newspapers running
around like the proverbial head-chopped chickens – all the while conveniently
neglecting to mention the fact that newspapers had the most profitable two
decades of their existence right up to a handful of years ago, and collectively
blew those profits on buying each other out and paying off the families who
were smart enough to take huge wads of cash and toddle off to do something less
glamorous, like badger sexing – webcomics are beginning to look like the only
good game in town, so even staid book publishers – like Del Rey, the science
fiction imprint of Ballantine, which, despite being part of the massive,
serious, Bertelsmann/Random House empire, has made buckets and bushels of money
over the past thirty years from [[[Garfield]]] books and even less likely drawn items – are surfing heavily from work, calling
it research, and drafting up big-boy contracts for cartoonists whose work has
only previously appeared in shining phosphor dots.

(And, now that that
sentence has cleared the riffraff out, let me get down to specifics.)

The house most active in snapping up webcomickers is the
comics publisher Dark Horse; I don’t believe they intended it that way, but
they’ve taken a strong line in signing up nearly all of the webcomic creators
that I read and appreciate on a regular basis. What does that leave for other
publishers? Well, it’s a big web, and God knows – despite my occasional
pretense otherwise – I’m not the Czar of Online Comics (though that would be a great job to have – mental note: give BHO a
call later to see if it’s possible), so there are almost certainly dozens of
damn good comics online that I don’t already read.

Which is a really roundabout way of saying
that I wasn’t familiar with [[[Goats]]] – even though Rosenberg has been doing it since the end of April 1997,
and the entire archives (including the strips reprinted in this book) are all
available online, costing no more than a few cents for electricity and an
attention span unusual in any web-surfer. If you don’t believe me, have a link – that goes back to the very first
strip, which, in usual daily-comics fashion, bears very little resemblance to
the strips reprinted here.

(more…)

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