Well, we know who we’re voting for and ComicMix will be on hand, covering events and news happening at next month’s Baltimore Comic-Con.
BALTIMORE, MD (July 5, 2011) — The 2011 Harvey Awards Nominees have been announced with the release of the final ballot, presented by the Executive Committees of the Harvey Awards and the Baltimore Comic-Con. Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, one of the industry’s most innovative talents, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art. They will be presented August 20, 2011 in Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con.
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. Thank you to all that have already participated by submitting a nomination ballot.
Final ballots are due to the Harvey Awards by Saturday, August 6, 2011. Full details for submission of completed ballots can be found on the final ballot. Voting is open to anyone professionally involved in a creative capacity within the comics field. Final ballots are available for download at www.harveyawards.org. Those without Internet access may request that paper ballots be sent to them via mail or fax by calling the Baltimore Comic-Con (410-526-7410) or e-mailing baltimorecomiccon@yahoo.com.
This will be the sixth year for the Harvey Awards in Baltimore, MD. Our Master of Ceremonies this year for the 3rd year in a row will be Scott Kurtz (www.pvponline.com).
This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con will be held August 20-21, 2011. The ceremony and banquet for the 2011 Harvey Awards will be held Saturday night, August 20.
Without further delay, the 2011 Harvey Award Nominees: (more…)
People occasionally ask me: so how do you fill your days working for ComicMix? Here’s what I did yesterday…
After getting up around 10 AM (because I’d been working overnight on various programming changes for the web site) I went into New York City to have lunch with authors [[[Dave Smeds]]] (X-Men: Law Of The Jungle), [[[Aaron Rosenberg]]] (World Of Warcraft, Eureka), [[[David Alan Mack]]] (Farscape: Scorpius for Boom!, Star Trek: Vanguard) and ComicMix contributors Alexandra Honigsberg and Kim Kindya, among others.
Headed off to a post-lunch survey of comic book stores, where I discussed with the owners about DC’s digital plans, and the meeting that DC will be having on Friday between their executives and various comic book store owners. We expect there to be fireworks a bit early this summer.
At one of the comics stores, also caught up with [[[Michael Uslan]]] (executive producer of the Batman films and author of [[[Archie Marries…]]]) who revealed that he’s in town to speak at the United Nations on Friday with Jerry Robinson (Batman artist and creator of Robin and the Joker) to address political cartoonists from all over the world.
Then after a brief meeting with a possible investor, I hopped a subway to Citifield, where I sat in Joe Quesada-provided seats with Peter David and his family to watch the Mets battle the Oakland A’s. Joe was a gracious host, and Peter and I spent a lot of time discussing an upcoming project of his we’ll tell you more about later this week.
It was a looooong game– started an hour late due to rain, and went to 13 innings. (The Mets won on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch with two outs.) Between innings, I also played chess with Marvel Senior VP of Publishing, Tom Brevoort. I think it’s mate in seven moves, but I’m not sure for which of us yet.
But after the Mets victory, as I headed towards the number 7 subway station, I saw one more comics tie-in– our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was there, alternately serenading us with Take Me Out To The Ball Game and his own theme song.
Then back here, setting up a few more things for the site before I had to drive a friend to a 5 AM flight. And after I get back from the airport, the morning press releases will be coming in.
[[[The Nine Lives Of Chloe King]]], based on the book series by Liz Braswell a.k.a. Celia Thomson, premieres tonight on ABC Family at 9 PM EDT and is being rerun at 10 PM. It stars Skyler Samuels (“The Gates”) as Chloe King; Amy Pietz (“The Office,” “Caroline in the City”) as Meredith King; Grey Damon (“True Blood,” “Friday Night Lights”) as Brian; newcomer Grace Phipps as Amy; Benjamin Stone (“10 Things I Hate About You”) as Alek; Alyssa Diaz (“Southland”) as Jasmine; and Ki Hong Lee (“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”) as Paul. Here’s a preview:
And tonight, after many many months of previews and years of development, [[[Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark]]] has its official opening tonight, less than a half hour from now. Yes, there’s been a lot of bashing about it, much of which happened on Sunday’s Tony Awards broadcast. Take a look at what Neil Patrick Harris had to say, and then the rebuttal from Bono and The Edge:
Marvel announced these a while back, but it seems more appropriate to show you these on Flag Day: to promote Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel is running “I Am Captain America” variant covers on selected titles through June and July, with all-new artwork from Joe Quesada, Marko Djurdjevic, Alex Maleev, Skottie Young, and Ed McGuiness, among others.
Personally, I’d love to have a few of these as posters.
Yes, it’s short… it’s still in previews. You’ll see the full thing in the fall, but you won’t see it on Broadway– only on Sesame Street as it starts its 42nd season. I can’t wait!
The ABC Family TV series The Nine Lives of Chloe King has a website up. We’ll be having an interview with the author o the original book series, as soon as we can figure out what to call her.
Happy birthday to Ty Templeton! Even at your advanced age, there are still pretty girls lusting after you… don’t worry, I won’t tell the wife. (Yours, I mean. Mine is one of the lusters.)
And finally: New Video and Photos of Filming of The Amazing Spider-Man in New York. I gotta tell you, the costume changes are still bugging me much more than usual and I don’t know why– unless it’s because we’ve already seen that the original costume worked fine on screen. And golden slippers? Really?
I spent several hours with Gene this morning. He wasn’t under the influence of any pain killers so he was lucid and jovial, but grew short of breath several times—and every now and again he’d grimace in pain. The attending nurse finally had no choice but to put him back on the morphine and that was it—Gene was fast asleep.
Despite his legendary optimism, Gene’s situation is tenuous. His family hopes he can undergo a procedure early this week that may alleviate his pain. Regardless, it’s unlikely that my pal will be drawing for anyone anytime soon.To continue generating what might become much-needed funds, we are selling off the last of Gene’s artwork, as well as some books and comics. Gene hopes to continue signing comics for the CGC Signature Series. If you have comics that you would like to put through this process, please contact me ASAP.
I am now taking private bids on the below items. To bid send an email to cliffmeth@aol.com – put “Colan Auction Bid” in the subject. In the body of your email, indicate the item # that you are bidding on and its description. Bidding on all items will end on Sunday May 8 at 11pm EST and winners will be notified.
We’ve received all the covers for DC Comics July solicitations, including the long awaited Games, the New Teen Titans graphic novel from Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. And when I say long awaited, I mean two decades long– which kinda ties in with all the DC Retroactive titles coming out, including our favorite, Green Lantern reuniting the team of ComicMix contributors Dennis O’Neil and Mike Grell.
Sometimes great minds think alike and even simultaneously. Two noted modern pulp writers within hours of each other sent ALL PULP an email, one asking to do an interview, the other wanting to submit an essay. Each of these writers wanted to use these vehicles to dig deeper into their own creative processes, to pull back the shade and show where some of the influences for their characters and some of the reasons behind creative decisions they made came from. The writer who requested the interview was Mike Bullock and that interview was posted yesterday on MOONSTONE MONDAY. The writer who’d written the essay is ALL PULP’s very own Barry Reese and it will be posted below to officially kick off BEHIND THE VEIL.
In the coming weeks, Perry Constantine, ALL PULP guest columnist will be contacting some pulp creators with a list of interview questions, not the basic questions, but some real get tough and deep type questions about relationships these writers have with particular characters they have created or have written. If you prefer, however, to do an essay as Barry did, then please do so and send that to allpulp@yahoo.com Both interviews and essays will be featured in BEHIND THE VEIL.
Behind the Veil: The Rook & Me
by Barry Reese
I was very young when my parents divorced. As a result, most of my memories of my father are ones where he was either drunk or making my mother cry, or both. He did get me on some weekends, though, and there are two very fond memories that I have of him: on Friday nights, he would let me stay up far too late to watch one of those B-Movie shows at midnight; and he always had those Bantam pulp reprints of Doc Savage and The Avenger lying around. From the former, I think I gained my appreciation of bad cinema and from the latter, I gained a lifelong appreciation for heroes that many of my peers had never heard of. While I could speak comfortably to them about the nuances of Batman, Spider-Man or Nova, I was always conversant in the more obscure realms of Doc Savage, The Shadow, Justice, Inc. and Conan the Barbarian.
Eventually, my father moved to Florida and his appearances in my life became more infrequent.In 1985 (when I was 13 years old), he showed up unannounced at the house I lived in with my mother and stepfather (the man whom I always think of as my “real” father). He brought me a huge supply of paperback books and spent a couple of hours with me. He made an off-color joke about a girl in my class that I mentioned having a crush on and then he hugged me and said he’d see me again soon.
It’s 2011 and he’s yet to keep that promise.
I grew up, suffered through the typical high school angst, found my future wife and a career as a librarian. Eventually, I kind of stumbled into a career as a writer. One of my creations, the one that I’m most known for, was a pulp-style hero known as The Rook. In this series, young Max Davies loses his father when he’s a young boy and grows up thinking that he has to somehow ensure that others won’t suffer the pain that he did. Eventually, he discovers that his father has controlled his growth, even from beyond the grave, transforming him into the man that he becomes. He’s tormented by conflicting feelings upon encountering his father’s ghost: does he hate this man who has shaped him or does he desperately want his approval? In the fictional world, their relationship heats and cools repeatedly before they finally bury the hatchet as his father is symbolically killed by the son and vanishes into the afterlife, finally at peace.
I never saw The Rook as any reflection upon my life until a reporter doing a story on me kept going back to my relationship with my own father. And then I wondered: did this man who hasn’t seen me in over 25 years still control me? Is The Rook some sort of grotesque parody of my own personal relationship with a man who in some ways is dead to me?
I sent my father a few of my books and he emailed me back, saying he loved them and that he appreciated how I used some of the heroes he used to admire. He also said he loved me. I thanked him for the comments on the books but I’ve never said I love you back.
Just as in The Rook, the grave isn’t always the end. Shortly after my stepfather passed away, my genetic father re-entered my life, through the magic of the Internet and Facebook.He sometimes posts on my wall and tells me how proud he is of me.
I sometime wonder if it’ll take his death for me to put all the complex issues to rest.
If he does die, will I attend his funeral? Seems strange not to but at the same time, I haven’t seen him in 26 years… how do you vanish from your child’s life for so long? Now that I’m a father, I (like Max in The Rook series) can’t imagine turning my back on my own flesh and blood. I’d gladly die for him… and can’t fathom simply walking away from him.
Sometimes I want to reach out to my father and embrace him but then I think that maybe I just miss my stepfather.
Well, we know who we’re voting for and ComicMix will be on hand, covering events and news happening at next month’s Baltimore Comic-Con.
