Tagged: X-Men

‘Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy’ Report – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

‘Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy’ Report – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  • News
  • June 23, 2008

The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art set aside Sunday, June 22, for a day of panel discussions about superheroes, the people who create them, and what they wear.

In promoting the event on their website, the Museum took the unusual step of admonishing visitors as follows: "Please note that visitors in costume will not be admitted to the Museum."

They don’t tell that to people who attend lectures on the Egyptian collection.

ComicMix was able to attend two of the afternoon programs. The first, "Designing Superhero Costumes," was a conversation with Alex Ross and John Cassaday. It was moderated by Stanford W. Carpenter, assistant professor at the University of Chicago. He divided the talk into three sections: 1) Designing for characters with an established history; 2) Designing for referential characters; and 3) Captain America, a character for whom both artists have designed.

Ross described his process as photorealistic, working from live models. "I draw better when I’m looking at something," he said. To provide a sense of realism to how clothing would look on a body, he had a Superman costume built for his model. He now has a collection of several costumes.

Cassaday described how his aunt had given him a book on Batman from the 1930s to the 1970s when he was four years old. As a result, he became a fan of several different eras of Bat costumes. He used this affection in a Planetary story, one that paid special homage to Adam West.

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‘EZ Street’ Nominated for Harvey Award

‘EZ Street’ Nominated for Harvey Award

  • News
  • June 18, 2008

The 2008 Harvey Award nominations are out, and ComicMix is proud to have EZ Street nominated for "Best Online Comic." Congratulations to Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley!

Sure, EZ Street is up against some tough competition — Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Penny Arcade, Perry Bible Fellowship, and The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo — but we think it will do okay.

This year’s Harvey Awards will be handed out at the Baltimore Comic-Con, held September 27-28, 2008.  Convention hours are Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM, and Sunday, 10 AM to 5 PM.  The ceremony and banquet for the 2008 Harvey Awards will be held Saturday night, September 27, hosted once again by Kyle Baker.

If you are a comics creative professional and would like to vote, you can download the .pdf Final Ballot or download .txt Final Ballot (for email) and send it to pjcjmc3 [at] sbcglobal.net. Final ballots are due to the Harvey Awards by Friday, August 15, 2008.  Full details for submission of completed ballots can be found on the final ballot.  Voting is open to anyone involved in a creative capacity within the comics field.  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 baltimorecomicccon [at] yahoo.com.

The full list of nominees is after the jump.

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Happy Birthday: Neal Adams

Happy Birthday: Neal Adams

  • News
  • June 15, 2008

Born on Governors Island, Manhattan, New York in 1941, Neal Adams attended High School Industrial Art in Manhattan and then went to work in the advertising industry. He had actually applied to work at DC Comics but didn’t get a job offer — Adams did do some freelance work drawing Bat Masterson and Archie Comics but was not credited for it. In 1962 he was hired as an assistant at the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), and worked anonymously on several comic strips before being given his own strip, Ben Casey.

In 1968 Adams approached DC Comics again and was immediately hired to draw a Deadman feature in Strange Adventures #207. Adams quickly became well-known for his DC covers. He moved to Marvel to work on X-Men with Roy Thomas, and after the title ended they moved to The Avengers together. In the early 1970s Adams returned to DC, where he and writer Dennis O’Neill teamed up to revamp Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and then Batman. Adams and Dick Giordano formed Continuity Associates to supply storyboards to motion pictures, and around the same time Adams worked on the science fiction stage play Warp, which ran in Chicago, Washington DC and (for one week in 1973) on Broadway.

Adams also helped push the comics industry to more creator-friendly practices, like returning original artwork to the artist. In the early 80s he formed Continuity Comics, an offshoot of Continuity Associates, to produce his own original comics. Adams has won several Alley Awards and was inducted the Alley Award Hall of Fame in 1969. He has also won several Shazam awards, and was inducted into the Harvey Awards’ Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.

Crossing the Line, by John Ostrander

Crossing the Line, by John Ostrander

I’ve been in this comics business for umpty-bum years now. Its not that I’m ashamed of the number; I just keep forgetting it. Ah, the joys of aging! It’s more than a quarter century since I started as a full-time writer; I know that. I’ve been a comic fan even longer. I’ve watched the occasional villain become… well, if not a hero, then something like one. Magneto, over in X-Men Land, for example. He’s gone from being the arch-enemy to our merry mutants to metamorphosing into an ally, to sometimes becoming their leader, and then back. Batman periodically gets darker until it’s hard to tell him apart from his foes.

Occasionally, this happens in real life.

Today, June 5, 2008, Ian Paisley steps down as First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Brief background, in case you don’t know: Northern Ireland is not a part of the Republic Of Ireland. It’s a constituent county of the United Kingdom and comprises the six counties that chose to remain a part of the U.K. when the Government of Ireland Act in 1920 created Home Rule in Ireland, formerly directly ruled by England. The Republic of Ireland, the South, with its capital of Dublin is (nominally, at least) largely Roman Catholic. Northern Ireland is largely Protestant but with a large Roman Catholic minority. In general, the Protestants regard themselves as English (they’re considered “Unionists”) while the Roman Catholics consider themselves Irish although, in fact, a citizen of Northern Ireland born before 2004 could claim citizenship in either or both the U.K. and Ireland.

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Interview: Chris Hastings on ‘The Adventures of Dr. McNinja’

Interview: Chris Hastings on ‘The Adventures of Dr. McNinja’

Chris Hastings’ ongoing webcomic The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is one of my favorite pay-it-forward comics. It was recommended to me a little more than two years ago, and I’ve been recommending it to anyone with even a passing interest in webcomics ever since.

While the series remains a consistent source of great storytelling and endlessly amusing, over-the-top action cliches presented in proud, black-and-white glory, I think it’s the tagline that really sells it. Go ahead and Google "Dr. McNinja," and you’ll see what I mean.

According to the InterWebs gods:

Dr. McNinja is a doctor who is also a ninja.

And there you have it.

Sure, I could tell you about the series’ excellent, ongoing and continuity-laden stories featuring a man torn between his medical oath to heal and his ninja oath to kill, as well as the raptors, ghost wizards, pirates, giant lumberjacks and flying sharks he finds himself battling time and time again, but when everything is said and done, that tagline really sums it up best.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Hastings is a witty, approachable creator who continues to seem pleasantly surprised by his status as one of the ‘Net’s most prominent webcomic creators. I recently had the opportunity to send some questions to Hastings about Dr. McNinja, the perils of giving characters a backstory and who he would cast in the big-screen version of Dr. McNinja. (*nudge* Take a hint, movie people, and get on this one!)

COMICMIX: While a lot of webcomics rely on the one-shot model with little continuity between episodes, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja thrives as an ongoing series with a massive, ever-expanding cast of characters. Why do you feel this is the right model for the stories you want to tell?

CHRIS HASTINGS: I think the Internet is the right model for me, because there are a lot more people with computers in their homes than there are people who go to comic shops and conventions looking for indie comics. I also had to spend way less money to put the comic online than to print it myself (which I did do eventually, but only after having a demand for it).

I recognize that long stories and continuity aren’t necessarily a massive trend in comics online, since typically someone’s attention span is reduced to about 12 seconds once they open their browser. But it was already my style to have something funny or exciting or generally satisfying in each individual page or update. And after someone reads a few pages and likes them, hopefully they’re hooked, and they’ve got some investment in the story and characters.

CMix: Do you ever worry about getting bogged down in the continuity you’ve created?

CH: I do occasionally. Like this recent story has been going on for a little over a year now, broken up into chapters, and I’ll be quite happy to go back to doing shorter stories like the first few were. But years down the road if the continuity gets to be an actual burden, like it is for Spider-Man, the X-Men, and others, I have the freedom to deal with it however I like.

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Happy Birthday: Scott Rosema

Happy Birthday: Scott Rosema

Born in 1958, Scott Rosema started scribbling when he was only four years old. By his teens he knew he wanted to get into comic books and set himself to developing his art skills.

He began freelancing in 1979, right after graduating from the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, and worked in commercial art for the first few years.

In 1982 Rosema started working for various newspapers, including a seven-year stint at The Muskegon Chronicle. Since then he has worked for Warner Bros. (Tiny Toons and Looney Tunes), Archie Comics (Space Ghost), Marvel (X-Men), Arrow Comics (August), Golden Books (Batman), Valiant Comics (Solar, Man of the Atom), Dragon Magazine, and many others.

Rosema and his wife own and operate Temujin Studios.

The Weekly Haul: Reviews for May 30, 2008

First things first, a rant. This was a banner week for comics (and don’t those always fall after a holiday, postponing releases ’til Thursday?), but I have a pretty substantial bone to pick. This week’s comics were rife with price-gouging from both DC and Marvel, with pointless cost hikes on several issues. The only semi-understandable $3.99 tag came with Final Crisis, which I reviewed on its own right here.

Now, rant aside, the reviews…

Book of the Week: Northlanders #6 #6 — Brian Wood’s series of Scandinavian mayhem has been hit and miss, but this issue’s on target like a broadsword to the brain. Sven continues to kill as many of Gorm’s allies as he can, brought to life with gloriously gory art.

But the key to this issue is how it’s gradually pulling Sven away from his mindless pursuit of revenge, even if it happens with a way too convenient to plot development.

It’s the story of a leader’s birth, but instead of being told through the rosy view of history and legend, it’s an ugly, bitter and brutal story. It could yet turn into a truly great series, as long as it doesn’t stray too far into the trite territory of Braveheart.

Runners Up:

Thor #9 — J. Michael Straczynski is doing so many things right in this book that it’s impossible to single any one of them out as central to the series’ success. Moving the plot in a new direction, he has Loki playing the Asgardian angles for the umpteenth time, only it’s so sly and written so well that it feels completely fresh, and not just because Loki’s now a woman.

The best moments come from the odd and awkward interactions between the Asgardians and the real world, which is now their world: an awkward love connection between god and mortal and the priceless image of two gods stuck in a small town jail after they had a too-public rumble with some monsters.

Green Lantern #31 — The origin of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern continues, and it’s the same balance of good and bad. On the one hand, Geoff Johns is covering ground that’s been covered too many times already, with Jordan getting his ring and starting training on Oa.

As boring as those moments are, the hidden part of the origin, the shadowy "Darkest Night" prophecy, continues to be endlessly interesting. It draws in so many unexplored pieces of Jordan’s and Sinestro’s backgrounds that it’s a shame Johns decides to waste time on the known aspects.

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Interview: Josh Hechinger on ‘Grave Doug Freshley’

Joshua Hechinger still hasn’t reached drinking age (that comes in July), but he’s already crafted a true comics gem in Grave Doug Freshley, a mash-up of comedy, horror and Spaghetti Western.

Cowboy and tough guy Doug Freshley takes a bullet to the head at the story’s start, but that’s not enough to stop him from a zombified revenge mission in the five-issue series from Archaia Studios Press. Hechinger recently spoke with me about where that idea came from, his love of Westerns and his upcoming projects.

COMICMIX: First, I’m curious about your choice to do a Western. Is that a genre you’ve long held an interest in? How did the idea of the book come about?

JOSH HECHINGER: I didn’t really care about Westerns one way or another for a while, actually. And then in high school, a friend of mine lent me The Good, The Bad and The Ugly… Pow, that was it. Instant Western fan.

As for Doug, well, a few weeks after watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, I was doodling in class instead of paying attention. And I doodled this zombie cowboy and a kinda Huck Finn-y kid. I didn’t really do anything more with it, but it sort of hung around in the back of my head until Marv [artist mpMann] came calling.

CMix: How much comics writing had you done previously?

JH: Well, this is my first real book. But I’d been writing comics nobody else saw since eighth grade or so, and I wrote something like 400 pages of various scripts in a year and change of college. I was doing three to five pages a session, twice a day. Although to be fair, most of it was kinda completely crap.

But anyway, by the time I started Doug, I at least knew how to sit down and just pound out pages. The pages probably weren’t crackling with genius, but I find it easier to clean up something than to nail it on the first draft anyway. The important thing was that I wasn’t sitting down and getting psyched-out by a blank page.

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Interview: Mark Sable on Cyborg, the ‘Heroes’ Webcomic and ‘Two-Face: Year One’

Interview: Mark Sable on Cyborg, the ‘Heroes’ Webcomic and ‘Two-Face: Year One’

When it comes to portraying the duality of a character, there are probably no better examples in the DCU than Victor Stone and Harvey Dent — otherwise known as Cyborg and Two-Face. With two new miniseries, Grounded writer Mark Sable intends to bring readers the back-stories of these two tragic characters.

With DC Special: Cyborg, the writer takes a look at the fan-favorite Teen Titan in a six-issue arc that began this week. Victor Stone was an Olympic athlete who, after being crippled, was resurrected with experimental prosthetics by his scientist father. Blessed with powers but cursed by his accident, he called himself Cyborg and became an important member of the Teen Titans. Created in 1980 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and introduced in the pages of The New Teen Titans, Cyborg quickly became one of the most popular DC characters of the ‘80s. He even became a member of the Super Friends on the ‘80s Saturday morning cartoon, The Super Powers Team: The Galactic Guardians.

In Two-Face: Year One, the writer takes a look at one of Batman’s most dangerous villains in a miniseries whose first issue hits shelves just days before Aaron Eckhart takes on the big-screen role of Harvey Dent in July’s Dark Knight. The two-issue miniseries follows Dent as he runs for District Attorney and has the accident that changes his fate (and his relationship with Batman) forever.

I spoke with Sable about Cyborg, Two-Face, the characters’ respective miniseries and writing webcomics for the hit NBC television series Heroes.

CMix: To start with, tell us what fans of Cyborg can expect from your new series.

Mark Sable: It’s a six-issue series and the first issue is almost like a “Year One” in the sense that it gives you a lot of his origin. I’m not tinkering with his origin. I’m trying to be as respectful as possible to what Marv Wolfman and George Perez did, because I think Cyborg’s origin is one of the best in comics. There were a couple of things that needed to be slightly tweaked to make everything make sense. It’s done deliberately because I want people who aren’t familiar with Cyborg to be able to pick it up. It lays the groundwork for what this series is about. Without giving too much away, we really weave his supporting cast of human characters into the story as well as the Teen Titans, so it was important for people to know who they are.

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‘Marvel Universe Online’ – Why They Killed It

‘Marvel Universe Online’ – Why They Killed It

That’s weird. We were just talking about Marvel Universe Online a few days ago. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (think World of Warcraft with Spider-Man and the X-Men) based on Marvel comics superheroes. Joystiq.com writer Christopher Grant got to have dinner recently with Shane Kim, VP of Microsoft Games Studios, and asked him why it was canceled.

Basically, Microsoft owned up to the fact they don’t do MMOs well.

"We don’t have a heritage of MMOs," said Kim. The article went on to list several MMO attempts that Microsoft attempted that failed. "It’s a hits-driven business … it’s all about quality, all about hits."

A link to a Gamasutra.com piece shed more light:

Given the rumors of confusion on the dev team about what the game was going to be like at a fundamental level, pulling support from the project seems like a no-brainer. That said, I think MUO’s death highlights Microsoft’s sordid history with Massively Multiplayer games.

I think that the fact that we’re still talking about Marvel Universe Online several months after it was officially canceled shows that the concept is still compelling and viable. But there’s no arguing that outside of a few MMO hits, the landscape is littered with flops from many different companies. Remember The Matrix Online or Star Wars Galaxies? Not surprising when you consider it’s a subscription-based business. How many of us just have HBO and consider that good enough instead of also getting Showtime?

I like to imagine, though, that Uatu the Watcher is spying on one of his "What If…?" universes where Marvel Universe Online game out and was more popular then Warcraft. Of course, the game would be populated by a thousand variations of Spider-Man and Wolverine with names like "5piDer-MaN" and "Wolverine Gets High."

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