I'll be popping in and out of AmoXcalli in the next few days with links to the dedicated Comic-Con blog my co-workers and I are working on over at AWN. Here's my first day of fun.
Informed Art - Comic-con Revealed
I was most happy to see all the great books and authors there!
I'll be at Comic Con in San Diego from July 26th to the 29th. Is anyone going? Would love to meet up if you are. My calendar is just starting to populate itself with meetings and fun parties.
Look for a special from the floor up to the minute account blog from AWN, that oh so fun place where I work. I'll be blogging with my co-worker and fellow blogger Rick of Ricks Flicks Picks fame (ricksflickspicks@animationblogspot.com). We're going to have a dedicated blog just for ComicCon but haven't yet decided what we're going to call it. We'll take suggestions!
Oh and if you have news related to Comic Con send it to editor@awn.com and we'll get it up on the site!
See ya in San Diego!
Mouse Guard, Fall 1152
Author: David Petersen
Publisher: Archaia Studios Press
ISBN 10: 1-932386-57-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-932386-57-8
This little gem of an art-book was serialized last year in the form of six small bimonthly “comic books” of 24 8” x 8” pages each. Each page is painted in a detailed realistic art style reminiscent of Arthur Rackham or Brian Froud. The collected complete work, plus bonus artwork, is a squarish hardcover of 192 pages; more of a fine-art graphic novel than an illustrated picture book.
The story is an adventure fantasy set in a medieval world of anthropomorphized mice, although they are drawn realistically, without clothes. (It is hard to tell the main characters apart except for the colors of their fur: red, gray, and brown.) Lieam, Kenzie, and Saxon, three young Guardsmice whose duties include the protecting of mice from the predators of northern European forests, are assigned to find out what happened to a peddler-mouse traveling between the towns of Rootwallow and Barkstone. They learn that he was eaten by a giant (to mice) snake, which they track down and kill in the first of the six chapters. But hidden in the peddler’s wares is a map showing the secret defenses of the Mouse Guard’s headquarters, indicating that the peddler was a traitor. The three Guardsmice set out to learn to whom the peddler was going to deliver the map. They discover a full-sized plot to take over the forest mouse nation, which leads to a civil war and the dramatic siege of the Mouse Guard’s castle in Lockhaven.
Mouse Guard has been receiving rave reviews throughout last year and this from critics ranging from comics-shop owners to librarians and Publishers Weekly. There have many comparisons of the story with the animated fantasy movie The Secret of NIMH, and Mouse Guard would make an excellent movie of the same type. The adventure, although rather shallow and stereotypical, is suitable for young fans of Tolkienish heroic fantasy, with lots of swordplay against huge predatory beasts and mouse traitors. The quality of Petersen’s artwork and the adult art-book presentation elevate Mouse Guard from a children’s book to one suitable for all ages. The appurtances of a media hit are already being planned; a first sequel, Mouse Guard, Winter 1152, will begin serialization this July, and PVC action figures of Lieam, Kenzie and Saxon will follow a month later. Read the first story now in what is sure to become a successful series.
The scene at Javits before the show starts.
I went in with a plan. Really. I had maps, schedules, lists, My BEA Daily Planner and other tools. It all went for nothing the minute I walked into the Javits Center.
Phil Ortiz working on the BEA mural.
Phil Yeh likes Tin Tin!I spent an enjoyable morning spending money on me for once. I usually spend it on things like grandkids, kids, bills, rent and food. I got back to my friend’s apartment just in time to quickly shower and change. Grabbed a cab and I was off to Javits, arriving just in time for the Latino Book Awards (see my La Bloga post for my full list of winners). The awards ceremony was a little long, the list of Latino books and categories was long which is great that we have so much out there. I met nice people, chatted with people from all over the country and was thrilled to see some of my favorite books get awarded.
6/1/07 - Friday. The exhibit floor opens!!! I did attend one panel and had several meetings as planned. Then I went wild. Books! Books! Books! I visited publishers booths that I really wanted to see. I kept running into things I hadn’t planned on seeing and just got completely caught up. I’d run into someone that I had only corresponded with on email and we’d get to chatting and there went my schedule right out the window. I don’t think I even made it to the press room except for once in the morning. I met Phil Yeh and Phil Ortiz who were doing a mural for BEA. Yeh is the author of Winged Tiger while Ortiz draws the Simpsons for the comic book series. Nice guys.
I got to the launch of LIP (Latinos in Publishing) reception just as it was ending. Darn! I did have a chance to meet an icon of Chicana literature, Ana Castillo who signed her new book The Guardians or me. The fact that I didn’t stutter in the face of that diosa famosa amazes me. Ms. Castillo was gracious, beautiful and the first page of her new book already has me hooked. I saw Julia Alvarez leaving but didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Darn!
From there I hopped over to the Transcontinental party with two of my new friends. We shared blue martinis and good conversation while watching some of the crowd hook up to a flavored oxygen bar. Wow. I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie or something. The blue martinis were yummy and stylishly blue. Tired and happy, I left to the apartment on 43rd but headed right back out again to enjoy NYC at night. Goat cheese pizza and a cannoli with an espresso made the night perfect. Why did I ever move back home again? I adore Manhattan. Oh yeah, it was those bitter cold winters. Wimpy me can’t hang.
6/2/07 – Saturday. Morning coffee in the press room while going over the show daily and my notes. A few appointments. Hit the floor. I spent a lot of time bringing books down to attendee shipping to put in boxes. What a work out! Authors seen – Peter Yarrow who’s beautiful picture book Puff the Magic Dragon had lines of hopefuls stretched out for what seemed like forever. I scored one and chatted with the courtly gentleman for a sec. The book is gorgeous and I got one of the cool tote bags too! Can’t wait for my box to get here so I can read it and listen to the CD. I saw Wilbur Smith and also got his latest book, The Quest signed. Another lovely and nice man. I headed over to what I call comic book row where Diamond Distributors have their booths and Marvel is just around the corner. I met Joe Keatinge from Image Comics and Jimmy Gownley the cartoonist and author of the delightful Amelia Rules! winner of a 2006 Cybil award (I was on the nominating committee).
Joe has several books of special interest to me in my other incarnation as GM of Animation World Network (AWN.com) and he lists them below:TALES OF COLOSSUS: Written and drawn by Mark Andrews, one of the major Pixar stars behind the upcoming Ratatouille. This is an epicmedieval tale where science and the occult combine to resurrect a in the form of an iron colossus.SCRAP METTLE: Another Pixar superstar, Scott Morse, has collected his sketchbooks and odd doodling into a 400 page hardcover edition,due out in July. It's a very interesting look into the process behind one of animation's finest creators.The two of them also worked on two anthologies through Image, AFTERWORKS VOL. 1 & 2. Both volumes consist of animation's finest doing what they love to do most after work - comics! The stories range from heartwarming all ages tales to WWII epic battles to silent heartbreak.THE DRINK & DRAW SOCIAL CLUB. One of the front runners behind their art DAVE JOHNSON, one of the main designers on the hit TV show BEN 10.I stopped to chat with Chris Staros of Top Shelf comics who handed me a copy of Renee French’s new book Micrographica. Another book I can’t wait to get to. Where are my boxes UPS? I know, I know, not till the 8th. The wait is killing me.
I finally got to meet Jeremy Atkins from Dark Horse Comics. We exchange a lot of emails and go to a lot of the same conferences but have never met. Finally! Dark Horse does some amazing things including the much talked about Alice in Sunderland and those luscious Samurai: Heaven and Earth comics that I can’t get enough of.
Thalia signs at Chronicle BooksPGW party at the Blender at Gramercy Theatre that night with a friend. Good band, good music, good time.
I could go on and on with everyone I met and spoke to on Saturday and books I saw but I’ll save some of that for the next post.
6/3/07 – Sunday – I was EXHAUSTED!!! I got to Javits, headed to press room and had coffee. Feeling mildly human, I headed to the floor. Scored more books, met up with more people, went to shipping and just sat on the concrete floor sorting books and organzizing my boxes for about an hour. I got it all together and had it shipped, then planned on going upstairs to do more of the show till it ended. Somehow my feet ended up walking me right out of Javits and all the way to the apartment. I got there just in time. It started pouring down rain. My friend was back in town so we hung out, had Thai food and talked for hours. BEA was over, but not really. It’ll all be new when the boxes of books get here and I go through everything, my notes, the show dailys, the business cards, the emails. What a blast.
Next year, it’s in my turf – Los Angeles. YEEHAH! Maybe in 2008 I can stick to a schedule.
Walt Kelly’s Our Gang. Vol. 1, 1942-1943
Author: Walt Kelly
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN 10: 1-56097753-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-56097753-7
Walt Kelly is famous for his now-classic Pogo newspaper comic strip from 1948 until his death in 1973. Most cartoon fans know that Kelly began as an animator for Walt Disney, and that he wrote and drew funny-animal and fairy-tale comic books from 1941 until 1948. He actually began Pogo in comic-book form in 1941. Much of Kelly’s comic-book art has been reprinted over the last two decades, especially his Disney comics covers showing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in his own art style.
Kelly also wrote and drew a human comic-book series during the 1940s, around the Our Gang children film stars. Movie historian Leonard Maltin describes in an introductory “appreciation” how Dell/Western Publishing licensed in 1942 the rights to produce a comic book featuring all the MGM movie short series like the Tom & Jerry cartoons, and they chose the Our Gang stories to lead off the comic book – and hired cartoonist Kelly to produce them. MGM had bought Our Gang from the Hal Roach Studio in 1938, and by 1942 had lost interest in them, so Kelly had the creative freedom to interpret the kids in his own way. The 8- to 14-page stories in these first eight issues were very close to MGM’s last Our Gang one-reelers, based on publicity stills of the child actors and following the movies’ stereotypes. Maltin, and Kelly collector-historian Steve Thompson in his introduction, promise that later stories of the 59 in the series will show how Kelly evolved, having the movie Gang grow older and be replaced with new characters who were Kelly’s own, with realistic personalities rather than stereotypes.
This collection has several laudable goals: to show that Kelly could create excellent realistic human-character stories as well as funny-animal humor; to restore a missing dimension of the Our Gang works for those movies’ fans; and to present a nostalgic glimpse of children’s lives in America in the 1940s. As Steve Thompson says, “Not for them the over-organized and regimented sports, dance and music activities of today’s youth. In those days before ‘stranger danger’ and almost daily reports of child abductions, in all but the largest cities during summer, kids could disappear after breakfast, possibly return for lunch, and then vanish again until supper, without panicking their parents.” (I can confirm this. I am in my late sixties now, and I grew up in Los Angeles rather than an Eastern small town, but I had the same juvenile freedom to just “mess around” outdoors all day with my playmates as long as we stayed out of trouble.) It may be personal nostalgia for my own youth, but I found Walt Kelly’s Our Gang vol. 1 to be thoroughly delightful.
Samurai: Heaven and Earth, Volume 2, Chapter 3: Lust and Lies
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Luke Ross
Colorist: Rob Schwager
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
I am astounded by this series and can’t wait for the rest of it. Shiro the samurai has completely captured my heart and imagination.
In Lust and Lies, Shiro and the Arab have washed up on the desert shore. Because Shiro has saved the Arab’s life, he continues to help him as part of repaying his debt. There are again scenes of a loving life with Yoshiko in Japan as Shiro remembers the good times. The two set off to find where Yoshiko has been taken with Shiro determined to get her back at any cost.
Yoshiko is taken to the harem of the pasha and is able to communicate in French with the first wife. She learns that she will spend her life in the harem and is subject to the whims of the pasha. While trying to escape, she runs into Don Miguel who tries to force her to come with him. This is Yoshiko’s chance for revenge and she takes it. She will make Don Miguel pay for what he has done to her and Shiro.
One of the things that makes this series so visually arresting is the contrasts between worlds. On one page you have the burning sun of the desert, on another the cool gardens of Japan overhung with cherry blossoms and on another the inside view of a harem. Of course, the artwork is stunning and so realistic that you feel you’re inside those contrasting worlds.
Samurai: Heaven and Earth, Volume 2, Chapter 2: Land and Sea
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Luke Ross
Colorist: Rob Schwager
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Once again Ron Marz and Luke Ross have created a believable and stunning adventure.
In Land and Sea, the samurai Shiro along with the Arab he has forced into helping him hunt for Don Miguel Ratera and Yoshiko who have boarded a ship bound for Vera Cruz. The two leave Barcelona and board a ship headed for the Americas.
Once they are on board and halfway across the ocean, Shiro finds that the ship Yoshiko was on was captured and the people on it taken to Egypt to be sold. Frustrated at being stuck on a ship with no way out or to Yoshiko, he battles the crew and jumps ship taking the Arab along with him.
Meanwhile Yoshiko is sold to a pasha and taken away to a harem where she will live out her days. Don Miguel is also sold to the same pasha. Will he find a way to the harem?
It’s a marvelous adventure on the high seas and across the blistering desert sands. The art is amazing, especially the scenes on the ocean. I don’t know how they make the sea look so real but it’s fantastic. You get the feel of a stormy sea, big waves and movement. It’s incredible.
Samurai: Heaven and Earth, Volume 2-Chapter 1: Enemies and Allies
Writer: Ron Marz
Penciller: Luke Ross
Colorist: Rob Schwager
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
In a prior post, I raved about Samurai: Heaven and Earth and this next comic in the series is no disappointment.
The samurai Shiro is back and still hunting for his lost love Yoshiko. In Enemies and Allies, Shiro travels to Spain to find the Arab slavetrader that sold Yoshiko in the first place. He forces the Arab to join him on his quest for revenge against the Spaniard Don Miguel Ratera (funny last name - in Spanish a ratero or ratera is a thief) and in keeping his vow to find Yoshiko. Shiro tells the Arab of his vow that nothing on Heaven or Earth will keep him from her and together they set off to find them. Meanwhile, Don Miguel is keeping Yoshiko captive as they board a ship to Veracruz.
As in the other comics, there are flashbacks to Shiro's and Yoshiko's life in Japan and some of the images are so heartbreakingly lovely that you have to stop and catch your breath.
The artwork is astounding and I can’t say enough about it. The story has you on the edge of your seat and rooting for Shiro while the artwork has you right in the midst of bloody samurai battles, on the ship and in the beautiful gardens of Japan. Stunning, stunning, stunning!
Samurai: Heaven and Earth is simply magnificent.
Jack Hightower
Created and written by Will Vinton and Andrew Wiese
Artist: Fabio Laguna
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
ISBN-10: 1-59307-392-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-59307-392-3
Imagine you’re a secret agent. Think James Bond times a million in sexuality, power and brains. You’re one hell of a hot guy and you know it. You have women falling out of their clothes and all over you. You rock.
That’s Jack Hightower’s everyday life till he gets in the way of the Hello Kitty t-shirt clad, long-time nemesis and evil genius, Dr. Litigious Savant and his shrinking ray. Now Jack’s ten-inches tall, forced to wear Ken (as in Barbie and Ken) clothes and the women aren’t falling so hard.
Oscar award-winning animator Will Vinton and his longtime writing partner Andrew Wiese have created a hilarious masterpiece in Jack Hightower. The story is fast clipped and funny. Jack’s fall from grace isn’t a pretty one but there’s humor in it. Jack is made fun of, put on sabbatical by the agency, falls into boozing it up and fighting in bars. Only the thought that the evil Savant is not dead gets him out of his depression and on the move to get his man.
He learns along the way that it’s not the size of himself that matters, rather the size of his heart. The art fits the story and Laguna draws some gorgeous images. The women are full-bodied voluptuous creature spilling out of their blouses and Jack – well Jack is just wonderful. His facial expressions are mobile and very real. The background scenes are colorful and action packed. I really enjoyed it and look forward to more.
Dark Horse announces second printing of
Buffy: Season 8!
Following the book’s release yesterday, Dark Horse will be going back to print on the much anticipated first issue of Buffy: Season 8. Since the book was announced last summer, Dark Horse has garnered a great deal of attention both in and outside of the comic market. With high profile press coverage, buzz among fans, and excitement from direct market retailers, orders exceeded the initial printing of over 100,000 copies!
“Admittedly, our expectations were already gigantic, but this has surpassed even those” says Dirk Wood, Director of Marketing. “We couldn’t be happier about how this has launched, and have high hopes for upcoming issues.”
“We've done something unique here. We've taken something really popular from the most mainstream of media, television, and we've transplanted it with total authority into comics” says Managing Editor, Scott Allie. “This is Buffy, by Joss, as much as the show ever was. And the sales seem to suggest that people are getting the message.”
The upcoming second printing will feature a full bleed version of the breathtaking Jo Chen cover, with some of the design elements removed for a cleaner, and more stripped down look. This new version will be arriving in stores with an on sale date of March 28, just a week before the release of issue #2. Dark Horse encourages retailers to backorder Buffy The Vampire Slayer #1 with confidence, as orders will be filled in full with the new printing.
Time Magazine has listed there top ten comics and books here:
http://www.time.com/time/topten/2006/full_list.html
I was happy to see that some of my favorites like La Perdida, American Born Chinese, Fun Home, The What is What, Absurdistan and Absolute Sandman made the list.
