Ilias Kyriazis Self-Publishes New Mini-Comic

Mister Ilias Kyriazis, Greek comicsmith of "Falling For Lionheart" (the graphic novella of last year I had huge anticipation for, really enjoyed, and included on my Best of 2o1o List), has a brand new short comic called "The Dragon And The Ghost" soon to be self-published and available exclusively on his website.

[via Ilias Kyriazis' Google+ account]

Look at this gorgeous thing:
"Falling For Lionheart" was sad, funny, beautiful, enlightening, smart, explosive with action, delightful with romance, and still clear in its main plot-line. Drawn in smooth, simple, cartoony lines, still solid enough to give weight to the characters' realism, and colored vividly and dramatically. Further, the use of the two very divergent styles: slick superhero and rough underground make the story tick in a new beat from one moment to the next.

The comic is so good, it nearly defies description. And that is only part of why a review of it never appeared here from me. I really should have completed one, because there is not nearly enough awareness of European comics here in the US.

His few comics online are also great. If you're a Beatles fan, prepare for a mind-fuck of a comic in "The One and Only Billy Shears". Marvel at his adaptation "The Iliad in Sixteen Pages". The two pages of POV from within an ancient Greek helmet deserve an award in and of themselves.

"The Dragon And The Ghost" has been previewed here (in Greek) by Comicdom.com and I'm excited even though the article isn't in a language I can read. The comic's promotion is for several reasons... inscrutable.

The opening line of the comic's short description up on the website is:

"Deep in the forest lives Therr Zon Aakh, the last American dragon."

This is the three-quarter splash page that got me a bit tingly:

Yes, that does appear to be a cavern full of treasures of history, art, and nature. I'm not entirely sure what all that means? At all? But I'm in.

"The Dragon And The Ghost" mini-comic is available exclusively directly in his online store that opened here yesterday.

~ @JonGorga

I Stand Corrected: Here is the San Diego Comic-Con COMICS News

I wrote on the site's Twitter account last night:

LongandShortbox LongandShortbox.com

The #comics news from #SDCC this year was more like a lack of news. Non-news? Nobody's talking much. ~ @JonGorga

13 hours ago

I stand by the third sentiment, i.e. nobody's talking about any of San Diego's announcements. And a great deal of the announcements that were made really were about video games, movies, and television adapted from comics, and had very little to do with Comics. The only thing I hear about again and again is DC's (@DC_NATION) complete loss of the opportunity to salve fears over their relaunching of 52 series at the end of this month, which Josh (@IamJoshKopin) and I have already spoken a great deal about here, here, here, here, and here.

Marvel (@Marvel), Image (@imagecomics), and IDW (@IDWPublishing) were the only companies with new COMICS news at the San Diego Comic-Con this year.

The few small announcements:

+ Brian K. Vaughan is returning to monthly comics with his first series at Image, called "Saga".

[via CosmicBookNews.com]

+ IDW is bringing back the character The Crow in a new series and complementing it with a series of reprint collections.

[via @Robot6]

+ Marvel and J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) will finally be completing "The Twelve" after a hiatus of roughly two years. Some covers are already drawn by the awesome Paolo Rivera (@PaoloMRivera)! This is a long, long time coming.

[via @iFanboy]

+ Josh already posted on the site about Marvel's "Avengers: Origins" series of one-shots giving us new takes on several characters' inceptions here.

Thorough description from Marvel here.

[via @Marvel.com]

+ Marvel has also given us a run-down of their "Fear Itself" aftermath series: "The Fearless", "Battle Scars", and "Shattered Heroes". Superhero characters dealing with death and loss in the wake of the war-like events of "Fear Itself".

"Battle Scars" especially sounds pretty exciting to me because it's being written by "The Sixth Gun" co-creator Cullen Bunn (@cullenbunn)!

[via @Marvel.com]

+ But the most exciting? Marvel intends to counter DC's wildly successful "Earth One" series of graphic novels with a line of GNs called "Season One"!

I covered, in detail, the stages of development and release for "Superman: Earth One" and I will do my best to offer comparable coverage to Marvel.

"Spider-Man: Season One" [preliminary art from which is to the left] will also be written by Cullen Bunn (@cullenbunn). This man is going places. Hell, I'd almost go so far as to say he's arrived.

Surprisingly, unlike DC's original graphic novel line, these stories will attempt to 'play nice' with established continuity. The goal being a shelf-full of fully-fleshed-out book-length comics that lead-into the comic-books on Marvel's New This Week racks. Ambitious. Impossible? Pointless? We'll see.

More original graphic novels giving the characters I love 'feature-length' sequential art stories makes me very happy so, no matter the continuity, I'm looking forward to giving these comics a read.

[via @iFanboy]

And DC had... no news other than the release of some of the costume designs for a few of the relaunching/re-booting characters. This lends credence to the rumor bouncing around that DC rushed to announce their big plans because Rich Johnston (@richjohnston) of BleedingCool.com was going to beat them to their own story. That's the game folks. But if it's true that the company making the boldest move in comics in a decade is playing catch-up? Heaven help us all.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ Side note: It appears Jeph Loeb and the new MARVEL TV division I announced the creation of back in July of 2o1o does still exist and has actually been hard at work on pushing through some new stuff. At least enough to merit a panel talking about it at the big show as iFanboy posted here. Jessica Jones getting her own live-action TV show? And a new live-action Hulk? Cool.

A Comic With a Personal Stroke

"My Reaction to the Amazing Spiderman Trailer" from PennyDreadfulComics.com

It's a bit well... over-dramatic. Intentionally dour, but still.

I've been reading Spider-Man comics since I was in the second grade and Peter Parker is essentially my model of how to be a person. So I have no right to call Maggie Vicknair out on having a personal reaction to some media including Spider-Man in it.

That said, the discussion Josh (@IamJoshKopin) and I had in our first little video dispels all reasons for us as comic journalists/creators to get upset about a comic-book adaptation movie. Doesn't mean we won't have reactions as fans anyway.

More importantly: The style on display is smooth and professional, the black-and-white tone-effects (which I'd wager are digital but do have the quality of an old-school ink-wash) are very good and the whole thing has a depth that's quite honestly way more work than most people would determine this gag is worth. The faces in the piece are remarkable. And most panels are tremendously effective: awkward surprise and confusion/disgust fueled by nostalgia. That's a tough feeling to get across. The piece has a structure, both visually and in terms of narrative, which doubles, then builds, and crescendos all in seven panels. If the tone wasn't so subtle and the desired effect so specific, the strip would be hilarious. If the concept wasn't over-the-top and the desired effect so ironic, the strip would be emotionally affecting.

THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT?
I immediately found this webcomic impressive while I also find it, as I said, over-dramatic. Doesn't tickle me.

It only takes a second to read to see for yourself. The link is at the top of the review.

Maggie's style can be seen on a more regular basis in her ongoing webcomic "Penny Dreadful" at PennyDreadfulComics.com. I have actually intended to write about her work for months, ever since I had the pleasure of meeting her about a year ago. Check out her work. Quite honestly, you should check it out solely because one of her best strengths as a comicsmith is her coloring.

~ @JonGorga

Quote for the Week 7/14/11

"As a child, when you're pretending you're different superheroes, Green Lantern was the easiest because all you needed to light the fire and the imagination was the ring... With Superman, you need a cape; Spider-Man you need, like, a full-face mask. That wasn't tough to come by in a winter town like where I'm from, but they're just hot to wear in the summer. So to be Green Lantern, all you needed to do is suck a Lifesaver down to the right size -- and to make sure it's a lime one -- slip it on your finger and you were good."

~ Nathan Fillion, in an interview about his work voice-acting as Hal Jordan for "Green Lantern: Emerald Nights".

Believe it or not, it came from this awful-looking magazine:


~@JonGorga

Fourth of July Fun

Josh agreed to come along with me on a short research trip to more fully explain this:

Okay, there was very little research done. But I was right that it was a good prompt for discussion. See for yourself:

I'm saying comics-adapted movies bring in money.

Josh is saying the two are innately separate.

Both true.

~ @JonGorga

UPDATE:
(thanks thenewbestthing)

Impressively Sized Billboards, Budgets, and Bludgeons

Last year, at around this same time, I wrote a somewhat harsh editorial about the comics industry and advertising after seeing a different ad for a fairly different Marvel comics-adaptation movie on this same Times Square billboard:

[If nothing else, it's pretty interesting to see how that specific corner of Times Square has changed in the year since, if you go back and look at my photograph from a year ago.]

Now, unlike "Kick-Ass", I am so freaking excited for this film. Not just because it's a superhero comic-book adaptation spear-headed by a man better known for his Shakespearean adaptations (Kenneth Branagh), and not just because the production seems to have picked up on the crazy design-style Jack Kirby originally brought to Stan Lee's interpretation of the god of Asgard, but because this film is the first to come out of Marvel Studios with Disney (@Disney) money behind it. Thus promising something even more spectacular than "Iron Man" in production, and hopefully, success. (According to rumors...) the production had run entirely out of money and would never have been made if not for Disney's purchase of Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel). The movie is scheduled to arrive in theaters May 6th.

Look at all the awesome on display here as well:

Classy! Let's hope the rest of the ad campaign follows suit...

Oh not so much, huh?

Not exactly classy. But still in the open, where the common man will see it, and that's good.

The film reportedly cost $150 million [via IMDb.com & Wikipedia.org] so I would assume no expense has been spared on advertising. And the billboards and posters seem to be in a wide range of locations here in New York City. The one I photographed is east of Times Square but there's another one just a block away from the 7-11 where I took the other photo in Queens.

I'm currently working at another comic-book shop in Manhattan and several shelves and long-boxes are organized into sections devoted to comics with upcoming film and television adaptations: Green Lantern, X-Men, Avengers, Captain America, and of course, Thor...

People who are going to say: Huh, this idea of the Norse gods like Thor being from a world where science and magic are the same thing is fascinating OR The idea of Thor being an agent of protection for human beings because he is forced out of Asgard for his arrogance is cool OR The sight of a huge dude with a hammer smashing frost giants is super fucking cool AND then deducing that just as a series of novels are more complex, fleshed-out, and original than a film adapted from them, all of these things are available in more complexity, more frequency, and more originality in the Thor comics that have been coming out since the Sixties... will then travel to a store like the one I'm working in to find a few of them.

Well, these are my hopes. It happened on some level with "Watchmen" and "Scott Pilgrim". Let's see if "Thor" brings another piece of the puzzle into place.

~ @JonGorga

UPDATE 7/8/11:

Just discovered this site that makes a much fuller analysis than mine of the marketing campaign(s) for "Thor".

In the Beginning Was the Image... (And the Word came later. Trust Me.)

"God gave us His Word, i.e., the Word of God; NOT a picture book!  The Picture Bible is very dangerous to children today, because it effectively inoculates them from the true Word of God, and leaves out critical teachings in the Scriptures."
~ "The DANGERS of The Picture Bible" by David J. Stewart

Those are the opening words of a rather strange essay about "The Picture Bible" I stumbled upon while researching Bible comics recently. David J. Stewart is a vehement believer in salvation through guilt, i.e. fear of the punishment from a vengeful deity. And he believes the "ecumenical" Christians, i.e. just about all the Christians not sitting on his particular branch of the tree, are as certainly wrong as he is certainly right. He has made this quite clear in his essay. I don't believe I am going out on a limb of my own intellectual tree to say that the kind of narrow-mindedness Stewart displays essentially discriminates against those arms of Christianity that disagree with him when he states that "The Picture Bible" is invalid because it excludes certain phrases he finds central to his religion. (Although he does make it clear that this is probably acceptable for those other arms of Christianity). AND discriminates against those who process information and learn visually instead of verbally. Few people in the America I know and grew-up in would disgree with that.

I do not 'believe' in the Judeo-Christian God. God with a capital G. I do not believe god should be capitalized because god is not a person or a consciousness or an intelligence or even an ideology. We capitalize Josh Kopin because Josh is real person, we capitalize Santa Claus because Santa is a fictional person, but god is neither of those things. We don't capitalize the word gravity either, and that's a force that keeps us alive and exists everywhere and anywhere too.

Now with all of that religious 'here's what I believe' claptrap out of the way, let's talk about sequential art: what makes this essay of Stewart's important for our purposes is that in equal measure to his religious discrimination he is discriminating between modes of communication and thou must embrace variety in mediums of communication or thou shalt be poor in variety of messages indeed. That is also what I believe.

David C. Cook Publishers, the producer of "The Picture Bible" proudly describe their 800-page product thus: "For years, The Picture Bible has delighted young and old. ... Though the full text for 233 stories is provided, children can follow the colorful pictures and storyline without having to read every word." That's often the mark of good comics: clear visual communication.

To believe that visual narrative, as Stewart states, "may be more entertaining, but it cannot cut to the heart, cause GUILT, and bring the conviction of the Holy Spirit like the genuine Bible can" is to ignore the art and communication produced previous to the written word and over the large majority of human history and insult all visual artists, sequential or otherwise.

Indeed, if "The Picture Bible" truly can communicate the stories of the Bible clearly without text it does the 'Word of God' a proud service in transforming and adapting it to the 'Sequential Image of God'. (Not to mention shun guilt and fear as spiritual teaching tools in the process.) No small feat.

~@JonGorga

P.S. ~ You can read more about "The Picture Bible" and Cook Publishers at the page devoted to them on Christian Comics International.org.

Comic Biblical Book-Endings (Or Lack Thereof)

"Amazing Tales of the Bible: Noah's Ark" by Zachary Kanin in The New Yorker Nov 1, 2010: The Cartoon Issue; pgs. 84-87 (Viewable, with digital subscription, here.)

Humor and imagination can get you a long way.

I've always loved The New Yorker, both for its prose and its cartoons and, increasingly now, comics. They both have the ability to tickle your funny bone and wrinkle your brain. And Zachary Kanin is among the new talents to draft and draw in the footsteps of Peter Arno and Charles Addams as a New Yorker cartoonist.

It seems that since R. Crumb can make a comics adaptation of the book of "Genesis" and get pages of it published in The New Yorker so can any sequential artist. The New Yorker released the first preview the public ever saw of Crumb's "Book of Genesis" project in their June 8th issue of last year: the Summer Fiction issue. (Truthfully, I suspect that it was because of Crumb's successful adaptation of Biblical material that this new work even exists. "If it worked once...!")

Furthermore, comics adaptations of the Bible are hardly a new concept: "The Picture Bible", everything on this site, the SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING. That list goes on forever. That is surely why the title includes "Amazing Tales of the Bible", as an in-joke about the existence of so many crude Bible comics out there.

All that said, Zachary Kanin's short and jocular adaptation of the story of Noah and the flood is far from bad. It's light and fun material and any fan of either Bill Cosby's or Eddie Izzard's hilarious stand-up bits recounting the story of Noah will find much to enjoy here. Kanin packs a lot of great stuff into four pages. Stuff like the two panels in which Noah is revealed to be a nose picker and the narrator declares "Well, not totally righteous" followed immediately by a panel where God says: "But good enough!" The effect is a bit of humanizing while poking fun at a Biblical figure.

The best moment is unquestionably the 'cut-away' image allowing us a peek into the ark, jam-packed with pairs of animals, all squished up against each other. Cartoon reality: bones of all kinds are flexible and pliable in all directions!

Why the damn comic ends with its worst moment I'm sure I will never know, because I'm sure Kanin doesn't know: The story takes a left turn and Noah meets another strange speedo-wearing (hispanic?) vassal of god on the high seas who asks Noah if he wants another wife, because on this other ark there's a surplus. Noah doesn't answer. Then I turned the page... and discovered there was no more to the comic. (Nonsensical and sexist?)

The art is simple cartooning, to its benefit, with subtle grey washes. The simple alterations in the lines of Noah's face giving us a look of determination as he decides if he is to get all his mating pairs he MUST PUNCH OUT A RHINO is a deft use of the tools in the cartooning toolbox. The first panel on the fourth page where Noah's eyes are so large as to be out of proportion to the rest of his face... not so much.

THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT?

"Amazing Tales of the Bible: Noah's Ark" is hilarious with hit or miss art.

The problem is that, like a lot of New Yorker cartoonists, Kanin just doesn't seem to care about giving his work an ending. He leaves without finishing. It's a problem seen literally a few pages previous with the only other comic in this Cartoon Issue: "Self Effacing Man" by Alex Gregory. It, too, has no ending, but it is a vignette. A short series of three thematically related moments in time. "Noah's Ark" is a series of gags and that's totally fine, but it lacks a final punchline.

A good comic, like any work of narrative art, should have a beginning, a middle and

~ @JonGorga

See what I mean?

Scott Pilgrim Is The New Peter Parker

"Peter Parker is the ideal man. He's smart, he's funny, and he always at least TRIES to do the right thing. Plus, thanks to Marvel's publishing schedule, we get to see each other pretty much every week."

Alison Lynn, friend of mine and Clare's, said those words the night I met her. Of course, Peter Parker holds a few points over most other guys by simple merit of being fictional. He can do and be lots of things us regular joes can't. Like be in fourteen places at the same time in a given week. Scott Pilgrim is far less reliable by comparison. He only dropped into our lives six times somewhat randomly over the course of six years. Does that make him more special by reason of being scarce? I'm not sure.

What I do know is the two hold a great deal of similarities between them. Think about it: Male, main character. Great responsibility... fucks up a lot. Beautiful girl to fight for. Special abilities that force him into an unusual situation. In the end the only difference between these two lovable losers is secrecy and spandex.

The release of Edgar Wright's adaptation film "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" has come and gone and the world didn't exactly explode over it. Its box office gross was considered a disappointment by most and although the film was really well-crafted and is already a beloved film among many (including the writers of this blog), it probably isn't going to spawn a billion other indie graphic novel film adaptations.

However another friend of Clare's and mine has been telling me about an ongoing experiment she's conducting with the residents that, as an RA, are under her stewardship. Rachel Altvater shares with The Long and Shortbox Of It a bit about people at her college dipping into comics:

I went to see the movie with two guys from my staff who hadn't read the books, and they both really liked the movie. I encouraged them to read the books, and one of them was skeptical because they were "comics." When I referred to them as "graphic novels," he jumped at the chance to borrow "Precious Little Life."

...

The guy from my staff said that he'd never read a graphic novel before, and he was liking it so far. He said that "Precious Little Life" was "really good...it just kinda sucks you in, and it looks just like the movie so far."

...

The person who came to possess my copy of "Precious Little Life" seems to be a lost cause. I can't even get the book back from him.

Josh's latest post proves this to be even more true as a friend of his picked up a copy of "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" without prompting of any kind at an unrelated college event.

People love Scott Pilgrim even more than they love Spidey.

Actually, there's also a lot of Charlie Brown in the character as well as Peter Parker. And maybe even some of the late, great Harvey Pekar in there? Could Scott Pilgrim's appeal be essentially that he is a loser with a good and stout heart? And we all see a bit of ourselves in him?

If so, I have never seen such proof that humans like to read about lovable losers because the "Scott Pilgrim" series is currently the most successful graphic novel series in America's history. As Clare said to me: "Bryan Lee O'Malley doesn't need to publish anything else for the rest of his life. And neither does Oni Press." At the very least, THAT makes me giddy as a school-girl because if it's really true, it means that one of America's most inventive comicsmiths and one of America's most varied comics publishers have carte blanche to do what feels right, to take chances, and throw caution to the wind.

Truly, as far as I'm concerned, if even one person discovers a few comics they wouldn't have otherwise I'm glad the adaptation was made. And more money in the bank for creators and publishers during this tough economic time is a good thing. That could be the real legacy of the "Scott Pilgrim" film: the bankroll it brought to a creative comicsmith and a publishing house.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ From bios and other public sources, I understand that Bryan Lee O'Malley (@radiomaru) and Hope Larson (@hopelarson) have been in a committed relationship for some time. So... would it be weird to point out that makes two young creative comicsmiths who both work often with Oni Press (@OniPress) with room to grow and money to burn?

Because this gives me hope for the entire medium, and the future of the American popular graphic novel form.

When Your Friends Pick Up Scott Pilgrim -or- Why Comics Movies Are Actually Pretty Exciting

Last night I was participating in one of my favorite activities at this ivory tower small liberal arts school of mine (that is, I was playing four square), when a friend picked up my copy of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. I don't think she reads comics, nor do I think she would have picked up that Bryan Lee O'Malley digest- except that she recognized the name.

Jon and I talk about our hope that good movies based on comics will drive people to reading comics all the time, and so watching my friend enjoy Scott Pilgrim (unprompted, I might add) was incredibly heartening.

Because I'm pretty sure it means I don't have to hide my comics under my bed anymore.

Josh Kopin vs. The World

SPOILER: This is gonna get mushy, so look away if you're squeamish.

I saw Scott Pilgrim. It's a very good movie, that much I know for sure- it'll take another viewing or two for me to decide if it's a great movie. Mostly, that's because I have a hard time separating the movie from the books; there were moments when I'm pretty sure I was enjoying it simply because I wanted so badly to enjoy it. That Edgar Wright was able to make a movie that wasn't beholden to either the original plot or the original imagery was essential to my ability to separate the two and enjoy the movie for what it was blah blah blah BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Look: by now, you know all that. You know that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a successful comic book movie precisely because it's influenced by the originals rather than being dominated by them, and that it successfully translates Bryan Lee O'Malley's work to film because it does what film does well, rather than trying (and failing) to do what comics do well on film.

Given that you've probably already read that review in a hundred different places, I want to talk about something else: I want to talk about why Scott Pilgrim works, even when it shouldn't. I want to talk about why I want to be able to hand the six volumes to my children (who, being my children, will surely have the same interests as me. That's how parenthood works, right?) and say "Here. Read this." In other words, I want to talk about why I love Scott Pilgrim.

While it would be easy for me to be all "Well, it's the best romantic comedy since Annie Hall, what's not to love" (which is pretty much true), I'm going to go a little bit deeper than that, and that story starts like this: once there was a girl who broke my heart. It happens to all sorts of people all the time, which means there wasn't anything particularly special or unique about the experience, but I did take it pretty hard. Eventually I got past it but, even when I did, a lot of the gunk (the guilt, the anger, even some of the sadness) stuck around. I'm still dealing with those feelings, with that gunk, in a lot of ways.

Then again, so is everybody else. Our new relationships are built on the ashes of our old ones. We learn from the experiences, we figure out what we did wrong, and we try it again. And that's what Scott Pilgrim is all about. Even better, the couple at the center of the whole damn thing is, in every way that matters, an everycouple: Scott's made mistakes, but Ramona's made them too- and whose are worse is irrelevant, because it all happened.

And that's why I love Scott Pilgrim. From the beginning, it's been about figuring out what the next move should be, based on the last one. It's about making mistakes, the dangers of stagnation, the problems with moving from place to place without ever actually moving very far at all. It's about learning to live with what's happened, about fighting your demons (sometimes more literally than others), and, eventually, it's about getting better. You want to know why, ultimately, both the film and the comics are so damn effective? The key is right there: they wore these themes on their sleeves (not unlike an X-Men patch) using characters that (provided you look past the slick, relatively hip, video games and music and manga dressing) everyone understands because everyone sees a little bit of themselves in, and they did it masterfully, without falling into a sappy, saccharine, puddly mess. More importantly, each iteration does it in its own way, in a way that works well within the medium being used: Scott Pilgrim and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World are two related but wholly separate entities that hit on precisely the same themes in a way that works with the advantages and limitations of the way in which it was presented.

This is not to say that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World didn't, sometimes, feel like a comic book (the way that the editor translated a comics gutter into something intelligible in film was particularly cool), simply that Edgar Wright took a six book epic, compressed it into one relatively short film, and still made it all work (although- there isn't exactly anything simple about that, is there?) Even more impressively, 'inna final analysis, the movie took those same issues that the books deal with so well and made me think about them in a different, although extremely complementary, way. This is, ultimately, how the movie must be viewed: as a complement to the books. Both of them, independently and taken together, helped me get better. Both of them, in their own ways, helped my clear some of that gunk. So, yeah, that girl still broke my heart. And, yeah, I felt pretty bad about it for awhile. But poor, oblivious Scott Pilgrim? He's had that problem too. And so has everybody else.
-----------------------------------------------
Earlier this evening, I learned that a friend of mine, Abraham Mendoza, died today. This one's for you, Abe.

Jon Gorga's Precious Little Time!

Last year's "Watchmen" film adaptation came out and there was a huge fan-fare and the trailer was magnificent, advertisements appeared everywhere, the world seemed to scramble to book stores and comic shops to read it and it sold like crazy for a few months, the action figures were gorgeous and, amazingly, in recognition that something was in the air, The New York Times finally created a 'graphic books' best-seller list (only online, however) and all us comics types were very happy.

Whew! Yeah! Awesome!

[Rorschach action figure image at right from DC Direct website.]

But then something happened. The film was a garish, occasionally unintentionally hilarious, extravaganza of superhero violence.

That was my initial reaction anyway. Can you tell I was disappointed? I've calmed down a lot since that day but I stand by my core reaction: in making a Hollywood motion picture out of Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' mini-series Zack Snyder took out all the quiet character moments and amped up the violent/sexual ones. The resulting film had a lot of the core spirit of the comics, but none of the beauty or honesty.

I said to everyone beforehand: 'Hey, if the movie is great more people will come out jazzed to read it than there are already. If it sucks, millions of regular, everyday people across the world will say 'It wasn't as good as the comic' and mean it." Still, the resulting film was so self-indulgent and violent I feared that there would be a backlash. That people would say: 'See? In reality all that superhero and comics stuff just comes to violence and sex. No more.' Generally, we didn't get that outside of a few cranks. (Despite the fact that we saw it big time when "Sin City"'s adaptation came out years earlier.) More importantly we didn't, thank god, move backward; but the movie's release slowed the progress we were making. Junot Diaz, awesome novelist and establishment geek, said something that amounted to: 'the Watchmen movie trailer was the best thing to happen to the comics industry in a long time.'

ENTER: Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphic novels that began with "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life" and Edgar Wright's upcoming film adaptation "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" that opens tonight at midnight. The process that came before the release of "Watchmen" has happened again, but bigger because both the film and the last comic are summer releases! Let's hope the last part of the story doesn't repeat as well.

Clare has informed me that not only is the last comic "Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour" sold out in the comics store she works at, but that ONI Press itself has run out of copies of the book and has to go back to the printer and thus only the chain bookstores have copies.

That's pretty remarkable. Superhero comic-books sell out of stock. Indie graphic novels do not.

I think it shows that people really are willing to find comics shops (at least Graphic Novel sections) and try something if they've heard good things/they want to be informed about a big cultural phenomenon at the zeitgeist. That's the one solo difference between this moment in time and past big-scale adaption film releases or films based on non-superhero comics: The sixth book just came out. Everyone can be pretty nearly on the ground-floor together and enjoy the latest (and final) comic and the adaptation of the whole series together.

But if it's a bubble ready to burst (not jinxing it, not jinxing it, not jinxing it) I want to enjoy it too, and the window is closing fast. At time of writing I am 35 pages into "Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together", the fourth book in the series. That means just about three graphic novels to go. I am going to finish them by midnight tonight.

So help me god.

Oh and Twitter. So help me Twitter. Because that's where you'll see my updates on this adventure over the next... YIPES! less than twelve hours! I better get back to reading!

~ @JonGorga (<--See if I make it on my Twitter account! Not the LongandShortbox account.)

San Diego 2o1o Final News Round-Up!

So it's been over a week since the end of the San Diego Comic-Con but there were a few things Josh didn't cover in his previous post and that I think should be talked about. They are laid out below:

-"Concrete", Paul Chadwick's unique man-trapped-in-the-body-of-a-monster character returns after an absence of about five years! The unfortunate professor, the gal pal, the assistant (all of whom I cannot remember the names of, but fondly remember the existence of) will return with the series that was one of Dark Horse's first critical successes. The related and almost equally cool announcement is that Chadwick's characters will return in "Dark Horse Presents", the company's original anthology comic which is itself returning to a printed page existence (after several years in webcomics form as MySpace Dark Horse Presents) sometime soon!

-"Kirby: Genesis" is the (I hope, tentative) title of an unusual project from Dynamite Entertainment bringing old Jack Kirby characters and concepts (some of them long since lost from the public eye) back in what will probably be a comic-book mini-series written by Kurt Busiek, designed by Alex Ross, and drawn by some artists yet to be announced. As you may have gathered, the details are fuzzy.

-Although I'd be lying if I said it excited me personally, John Byrne's "Next Men" will be returning with IDW Publishing in December 2o1o after disappearing from shelves, on a cliffhanger ending, for fifteen years!

-"Ultimate Doom" will complete Marvel's trilogy of minis started with "Ultimate Enemy" years ago. They seem to be making a concerted effort to not reveal the 'ultimate' enemy but... they've titled the final mini "Ultimate DOOM". If you're any kind of fan of Marvel Comics I think you know who this'll be.

-I suspect this will mean nothing to many of our readers but: Marvel has acquired CrossGen's old characters. It probably wasn't too hard since Disney bought them years ago and then bought Marvel late last year, putting them both in the same 'house' so to speak. Now Josh mentioned in his post that "it can't be every year that Marvel buys Marvelman and promptly does nothing of note with the property" but in a way we do have a very similar announcement here. Marvel now owns a cadre of little known, but in some cases well-loved, series: "Sigil", "Scion", "Ruse", "Way of the Rat", "El Cazador", and J.M. DeMatteis' "Abadazad". The shared universe in which many of them live having been cut-short in the middle of its first crossover event by bankruptcy in 2oo4. Only in the past few months have we finally seen some actions utilizing the Marvelman family of characters that Marvel announced acquiring at the San Diego Comic-Con LAST year. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long to see an effect from this year's acquisition.

-And connected with the new direction for Spider-Man Josh mentioned there will be:
A. A new series featuring Arana re-branded as a new Spider-Girl.
and
B. A Norman Osborn mini-series.
and
C. A Carnage mini-series.

~ @JonGorga

P.S. ~ And well, of course, on the adaptation movie front there was this HUGE news. Awesome.

That and there's going to be an "A Contract With God" film. Exciting, but sad for me. I wrote an adaptation script for that classic comic by Will Eisner back in college... Probably never going to get that job now!

SDCC Was...

...well, a little disappointing, to be honest.

• There was a lot of news on the movie front, most of which we already knew- and some of which we really wished was true, even if it wasn't.
• We've got some fun new stuff from Marvel, like the new Strange Tales and Fred Van Lente's Power Man and Iron Fist mini.
• We've got an end to the Brand New Day status quo, with Dan Slott taking over all writing duties on Amazing Spider Man, which will now ship twice monthly.
• We've got a Grant Morrison penned Batman team book called Batman Inc. and a suggestion that Bruce Wayne, upon his return, is going to do something other than be Batman.
• We've got an 80-page Robert E. Howard anthology series from Dark Horse, entitled Savage Sword (which, oddly enough, I'm looking forward to- if for no other reason than that it looks like a good way to jump into some of Howard's characters).
• We've got some images from the next League of Extraordinary Gentleman.
• We've got a Morrison and Geoff Johns collab.
• We've got a shit tonne (that's an official measurement, by the way) of Captain America related projects.
• And we've got Kieron Gillen, a fantastic writer, on a new, awfully titled, X-Men series called Generation Hope.
  

While a lot of this is really cool, it's also run of the mill sort of stuff. Nothing explosive happened at SDCC, no announcements that were truly mind-bending. There weren't even that many announcements, all things considered. Are there no more exciting announcements, in a world where the Internet is basically just a huge rumor mill? Or are the companies sitting on something big for NYCC, which is an actual comics event?

We'll just have to wait until October to find out.

LATE EDIT: In retrospect, this post is perhaps a little cynical. After all, it can't be every year that Marvel buys Marvelman and promptly does nothing of note with the property.

Walking a Mile In Someone Else's Hulking Purple Pants...

Replacing Ed Norton and recasting The Hulk for the Avengers movie?

Bad choice, Marvel. Bad choice, not only because the wiry, stringy, brilliant Ed Norton was perfect for the role, but because ED NORTON WAS PERFECT FOR THE ROLE.

I guess we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to see who replaces him before passing any final judgments. Still, I would have liked to see Ed playing the big green guy again.

Can Do, Can Draw, Can Teach

"To Teach: The Journey in Comics" from Teachers College Press

"Of course teachers should use comics across the curriculum, just as they might use film or poetry or painting. I can’t imagine teaching the Middle East without Sacco, the holocaust without Spiegelman, gender without Bechdel." ~ William Ayers, author of "To Teach"

All comics creators, whether they are visual artists, writers, editors, or comicsmiths have the ability to share through their sequential art. By 'share' I mean that they can communicate thoughts, feelings, ideas, and even specific memories to the reader. It's fitting that this teacher/author you may have never hard of before should cite Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Alison Bechdel as they have all created honest portrayals of their lives in comics memoirs, a somewhat rarer genre of comics, to which Bill Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner have now added their graphic novel "To Teach: The Journey in Comics". For perhaps the first time, a memoir has been adapted from prose (with considerable input from the original author) into the medium of comics.

"The Classic Teaching Memoir... Now also in Comics" is a bit of a strange promotional line, but this is something of a strange project. In 1993, William Ayers wrote a memoir titled "To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher", it was published by Teachers College Press and found such wide success that it eventually received second and third editions and now a sequential art adaptation (TCP has a website here, including a promo video for "To Teach" with both Bill and Ryan). Bill Ayers is not only an author, a brilliant educator, and an education reform activist, he was a founding member of the Weather Underground, making him a former domestic terrorist for peace. Contradictory positions, so it would seem. The artist, Ryan Alexander-Tanner won a Xeric Grant Award to self-publish his comic "Television" #1 in 2oo7 and "specializes in... teaching kids how to make [comics], and teaching grown-ups how to teach [comics]!" (Ryan's website OhYesVeryNice.com is full of great stuff.)

Teachers College Press put these two like-minded creators back in touch with one another (they had met casually years earlier) and Alexander-Tanner moved in with Ayers and his family for half a year to make this project a reality. They produced the comic through what sounds like a tortuous process: Ayers would condense chapters of his famous memoir down to a few pages, which Alexander-Tanner would read and then sketch images and design sequences that captured the essence of Ayers' original thoughts, requiring more condensing, which then required more cartooning... Ayers has said this in interviews and at an numerous events: "It took a while for me to really get the fact that we were writing an entirely new book, not an illustrated version of something I had already written, and not a floppy gateway drug into the “real” To Teach." Each of the creators Ayers mentions in the quote I started this review with are comicsmiths [my word for creators who take on all steps in the creation of a comic] and therefore have the greatest opportunity to communicate their memories directly to other people just like autobiographers, documentary filmmakers, and singer/songwriters can, but Ayers and Alexander-Tanner have pushed their psyches to adapt a textual work into a graphical/textual work together.

Of "To Teach: The Journey in Comics", all I really need to say for the purposes of review is this: the ideas are important, the writing is sharp, the cartooning is great, and the storytelling fluid. The tension between text and graphic communication in the adaptation process has made for a gap-bridging work.

For these reasons, the number of people I know along the entire spectrum from casual acquaintance to decade-long friend, from comics literati to comics illiterate, and from neophytes to retirees who would get a great deal out of reading this comic is astounding. ANYONE can read this comic.

-Rachel Altvater is a college student whose self-declared ideal career path is "educator and revolutionary". She also likes a good comic every now and again. Ayers' ideas about teaching are revolutionary, not to mention important. Not a bad match.

-Aaron Lebow struggles on a daily basis with abstracts like 'quality of life', 'psychological effects of environment', and 'following your passion' that are dealt with in this comic. He is also, like me, fascinated with different mediums of communication and adaptation methods between them. Reading "To Teach" might help him understand more about himself as a living, thinking human being.

-Rebeka Felicity is a former classmate of mine who just spent the first of two years in a teaching program that will pay for her college education. Unfortunately, her experience has been less than stellar. She has found hostility among her students and a lack of resources in the school in general. She is an avid comics reader and a fellow comicsmith who has already made a comic representing her experiences; a practice this comic both encourages as a tool for recording and evaluating the student's activities and literally does, as it is a comic about Ayers' experiences as a teacher.

-Cory Lally is one-half of a 'caricature entertainment partnership' that goes by the name of The California Boys. He and his friend Jared can whip up a cartoony image in a matter of minutes, and often do so on the streets of Manhattan for free to spread the word about what they offer! Cory and Jared have begun working on a comic together using the 'exquisite corpse' technique. Alexander-Tanner's style is, like Cory's, cartooning: simplified features of reality to create the illusion of animate life. Cory might be surprised, and I hope inspired, to see what someone else is communicating to an audience with the power of the economy of line inherent in cartooning.

-Tim Lewis just started a graduate program in teaching. Guess what one of the assigned readings is? Selections from "To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher" by Bill Ayers. Guess what his new job is? Research assistant for a book on Superman. He's going to be hungry for more and as a busy grad student who enjoys non-fiction comics (I happen to have been present when he bought "Stagger Lee") there is no question that the best thing he could do for himself is to buy himself a copy of Ayers' and Alexander-Tanner's graphic novel.

-David Wise is a retired high school educator and caring beekeeper who is well-read and curious about comics. David has known me for my entire life. Ayers writes that a teacher must be sensitive to differences brought about by environment just like a beekeeper must alter techniques for bees of a different climate. I am sure he would be fascinated to discover the thought of Ayers and enjoy the unique experience of a discussion about his venerable profession in sequential art.

-Not to mention my fellow writers on this blog, Clare (who is considering pursuing a teaching degree after obtaining her undergraduate degree) and Josh (who is well on his way already to becoming a comics scholar)!

"To Teach: The Journey in Comics" is a unique combination: a collaboration adaptation how-to memoir comic. I've said this before, but it's rarely been as true. EVERYBODY should read this comic.

(A copy of this graphic novel for review was obtained at no cost from Teacher's College Press at BookEXPO America.)

~ @JonGorga

----------------------------------------
P.S. ~ Both quotes from this review are from an interview with William Ayers conducted by our friends at GraphicNovelReporter.com! You can read it here.

Jeph Loeb Has New Job as Marvel's Head of Television

"Executive Vice-President, Head of Marvel Television" to be exact!


Huh...

This is a subtle ramification of Disney's purchasing of Marvel last year. In this video, Loeb talks about "hour-long dramatic television series" (presumably he means live-action series) soon to be in development with "ABC and ABC Family", both Disney owned channels if you didn't know. It's exciting because although there has been a 'Marvel Animation' or a 'Marvel Studios', there has never been an over-all TELEVISION division at Marvel. That is why there have been so few Marvel properties in live-action television adaptations, and why they have generally been very cheesy when done. It is also why there has never been a push toward television advertising for Marvel's comics.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" 1977 live-action series:

is a prime example of Marvel on TV gone bad.

The 70s "Incredible Hulk" live-action series is the exception to this... although it's not exactly perfect either.

What will this mean moving forward? Well, I imagine that if nothing else it means we will have one centralized force working to get Marvel's characters back on television and hopefully in high quality narrative productions, but possibly limited to channels owned by Disney.

Regardless of the quality of the comics he has been producing of late, Jeph Loeb is a damn smart man who has had a varied career in varied media for decades: film, television, and comics. This isn't Marvel putting a comics writer with no experience in moving image media in charge of their Television division. This is a shrewd move on the part of Marvel/Disney and I'm sure we'll see some nice productions come out of it but...

I hope this leads to some avenues for direct comics advertising on channels owned by Disney. Because this blog is about comics, Disney bought Marvel and Marvel is in the business of making comics goddamnit. I know, 'Again he's harping on this?' but I really do believe that good adaptations may lead people back to the comics and bad ones may steer them away from the medium, but advertising for the comics themselves can only be good for the industry. No matter how bad an advertisement for a specific pizza brand is, it gets you thinking about pizza. This is even more important for comics in the US because we are in a country where thousands or even millions of people don't even know that comics HAVEN'T died out yet.

If this new "Marvel Television" diverts even more capital away from the sequential art division and isn't also going to incorporate some advertising for the comics or at least some planned financial kickback into the comics, I'm going to be pissed. The potential here, as always, is great. Whether Marvel remembers to keep the focus on their roots remains to be seen.

~ @JonGorga

In brightest day....

In blackest night

No teaser poster shall escape my sight.

Let all who worship movie critics' might

Beware my power

Green Lantern's light poster.

Okay, so I couldn't make it rhyme. Deal with it. You get the gist. I'm excited for this movie. I really am. Though in my heart of hearts I know it will probably disappoint me, like an ex-boyfriend that claims to have changed. But the flashy teaser poster and the promise of Mark Long as Sinestro keeps drawing me in. Then I remember the fact that they cast Blake Lively as Carol Ferris and I'm torn again.

But besides the truly baffling choice of having skinny, blonde Lively playing a tough, pilot chick like Carol, my major fear about the Green Lantern movie is that I'm worried there won't be enough of, you know, everyone else. Now I'm not expecting John or Guy or Kyle (that would be dumb, because they came later) but what I want to see is Kilowog, Tomar Re, maybe even Katma Tui. You know, the Lanterns from other sectors that make the comic book so much fun. Little known fact, Kilowog is totally my favorite Lantern.

So far IMDB isn't listening any non-earthlings besides Abin Sur and Sinestro, which doesn't look good for me. Now I'm assuming we'll at least get The Guardians, but what I love so much about the Green Lantern comics is the range of characters. I want to see Hal become a Lantern, but dammit, I want dudes from space too. So please don't break my heart DC, and deliver me a Green Lantern movie as awesome as the comics (and as awesome as that poster).

Later, poozers. Lantern Sector 2814.5 out.

A Call to Ads

Sometimes I wonder about things. Arty medium difference economical things...

I've mentioned finances and how they affect the Comics industry in a few of my recent posts, and I'd like to expand upon some of that while tackling a whole other industry: the Advertising industry. More importantly, I want to address the connection between the two industries and the wide potenial for the Comics world's deals with the ad men of Madison Ave as I see it.

So "Kick-Ass" (@kickasscomic) is one of the hottest comics on the stands right now (when it comes out). I haven't read every issue yet (the last issue of the first volume, #8, came out back in January). I happen to think it's pretty over-done violent junk, but who am I to judge the tastes of the people.

"Kick-Ass" also just received the silver-screen treatment (@kickassthemovie) and made a somewhat disappointing weekend release that, however, hasn't dropped off in huge numbers since. In the weeks leading up to the adaptation's arrival in theaters this giant billboard could be seen in Times Square here in Manhattan:

Pretty sweet, right? Well, I can't enjoy it because all I can think is why couldn't it be this:

Comics billboard advertising. Why not?

Well, I think to myself: Self, comics can't have billboard ads because the amount of money the rental agency charges the ad agency who charges the person who gets the advertising contract is too huge for the number of people who are expected to see it and then follow their nose into a comic-book store or into a box-chain bookstore and ask for the Comics & Graphic Novels section.

An unfortunate truth, I guess.

Films cost millions of dollars to make and make tens of millions of dollars in revenue, so the ad agency charging the production company can be paid tens of thousands of dollars and in turn spend thousands of dollars on a giant fucking billboard.

So the problem is one of scale or, perhaps more accurately, perceived scale.

But perceptions can be changed, can't they? We just had the annual Free Comic Book Day this month and although it wasn't a failure by any stretch of the imagination, it was pointed out to me by a comic shop manager friend of mine that his boss HATES Free Comic Book Day (@Freecomicbook). Why?

Well, because it's a day on which he is required to shell out money (although not a lot, something like ¢8 a comic-book) for product that he is then going to be expected to give away for free. If he doesn't give the comics away, he looks like a jerk. If he absconds from the whole event, he looks like a jerk who isn't current with the times. So far, financially, this has all worked out because so many people come into the store looking for something free and leave with a few things that aren't free that the store makes enough money to cover the expense and then some. But he still hates that he's giving the product away and there's something else. There's a bigger problem here:

Most of the people coming in are comics readers already because most of the promotion for the event appeared in places comics readers look.

I can understand his point of view even if I don't agree with it. (As I wrote the next day, I saw quite a variety of people.) Most specifically I can agree with the undeniable fact that comics still don't get promotion in the same way the other arts do.

Graphic novel ads on Times Square billboards. Why not?

Comic-book ads on television. Why not?

Magazines, newspapers, radio, subway cars. Why NOT?

Because less people read comics? No. That may be the truth, but that isn't why these ads don't exist. There are ads for all kinds of things that have no market whatsoever in reality. That's the American way. Sell 'em something they don't need! Advertising isn't based on reality it's based on expectations about reality:

Perceived economies of scale.

Whether changing the perception will magically change the reality or vice versa I have no idea, but I do know there are some softball ways to start this process. In fact, some of them are already underway.

Facebook user-designed ads which can be set up to direct a user to a Facebook page are so cheap and, as a result, are appearing for comics, webcomics, and comics-related events. That's really exciting because not only is that advertising in the face of people who theoretically want to see it, it's designed directly by the artistic creators/event planners for those people.

But these are probably called-up from text-search algorithms based on the user's habits. So they'll see these ads only if they already happen to be on Facebook pages with words like "webcomics", "comic-books", "artists", etc...

Marvel advertises for its Digital Comics Unlimited streaming subscription service on all kinds of websites. They have a bunch of them, they look like this:

Not exactly as professional looking as I'd like. It is a web banner ad; it doesn't really need to be too fancy but it only looks marginally better than the user-designed Facebook ads!

The "Scott Pilgrim" people at Oni Press (@OniPress) and Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) really have a good thing going. They've printed up bookmarks that have an ad for the upcoming film adaptation on one side and an ad for the soon to be completed graphic novel series on the flip side.

See?

"SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD" (the movie adaptation)

"An epic of epic epicness."

in Theaters August 13 & @ www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com

*Turn it over...*

"SCOTT PILGRIM'S FINEST HOUR" (the sixth and last graphic novel)

plus! "Catch up on Scott Pilgrim at your local Comic Shop!"

in Stores July 20th & @ www.scottpilgrim.com or www.onipress.com

Now that's smart marketing. You see one side, it excites you and you learn about either the adaptation or the source material when you flip it over!! The film gets advertising, the comic gets advertising, the customer gets a free bookmark. Each side is the same size and in the same place and thus gets the same exposure. Both are true to their respective logos and designs/aesthetics. Nobody behind this marketing tool made an a priori assumption about the number of people potentially interested in a film or the number of people potentially interested in a graphic novel. It's trying to get as many people as possible interested in both and as a result probably has gotten a maximum number of people interested in the related product. Everybody wins!

I don't mean for this post to be a series of admonitions and accolades. All comics companies could be doing more to promote the Comics medium in mainstream avenues.

I saw a Las Vegas comic-book store make shockingly good use of advertising in a large theater in the weeks after the release of "The Dark Knight" two years back. They placed Grant Morrison's recent issues of "Batman" in a nice fan shape (with Alex Ross' gorgeous cape and cowel cover on top) with the deluxe Batman movie dolls Warner Bros. released in a small glass case next to the concession stand. Why couldn't DC Comics do something like that on a huge scale?

Why didn't "Kick-Ass" the movie have a teeny tiny bump play before it started in the theater for the Comic Shop Locator service? Did you even know such a public service existed? 1 888 COMIC BOOK. Really.

Why don't the mid-level to major-level companies create a multi-million dollar coalition (they've done that before on at least two occasions I can think of, off the top of my head) to buy ad space in People magazine or The New Yorker or time on WFMU (I'm told they love Dan Clowes over there. Fantagraphics, you're not taking advantage of a golden opportunity!) or during the goddamn Super-Bowl or ANY OF THE MILLIONS OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES SELLING ADVERTISING TIME/SPACE?

I don't mean for this to be about what the Comics industry is doing wrong. This is not a badgering admonition. I mean for this to be about what more the Comics industry could be doing right. This is a call. A call to the weapons that lay waiting at the feet of the Comics industry.

I believe in marketing comics, because I believe in the power of the Comics medium. Sometimes, I wish the publishers and advertisers believed in marketing comics too. Maybe the recent acquiring of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company will enliven things in this department a bit. I wrote a bit a few weeks ago about the first appearance of Marvel merch in Disney stores. Disney owns radio stations and television channels up the wazzoo, so are we going to see Disney/Marvel making use of those outlets for more than just cartoons of varying quality starring Marvel characters?

I hope so.

~ @JonGorga