Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 25, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Comic books have been around for quite a while now — so long, in fact, that it’s hard to remember just when certain characters debuted. Letters of Note uncovered this 1941 sketch of Wonder Woman’s original design by artist Harry G. Peter, replete with notes from William and Peter Moulton Marston. “I slapped these two out in a hurry,” Peter writes. The design’s main motif — the golden eagle on her chest — was eventually scrapped in the following months before her heroic debut in favor of the famous golden Ws for which we know her best. Iteration is expected, though — when you’re inventing the first real superheroes, like these men did, you don’t have any others to base your creations on! Read more…
Tags: DC Comics, Wonder Woman
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 24, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Francesco Francavilla, currently working as artist on Marvel’s Black Panther, whipped up this amazing re-imagining of The Avengers in the year 1500 for Comic Twart. The Hulk is seen as a, well, hulking Celtic druid, Captain Amerigo wields the familiar star shield, Thor is the actual Norse god, and there’s a man walking around in what appears to be iron. Don’t know who that guy is supposed to be. Read more…
Tags: The Avengers
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 22, 2010 in
Comic Books 
As an art director I’m jealous of Japan because their publishing industry really uses a great deal of creative illustration while too many American book covers are the result of stock photography. While there are exceptions to the rules when ever I walk into a Japanese bookstore I’m always struck by the fact that almost every other book has a high quality illustration. For this article I’ve collected ten cover illustrations that caught my eye. Shown above is a Satoshi Kon Memorial Book — I really love the contrast of the black and white drawing with the column of color on the left of the page.
Fellows Felon
The use of dots as a texture in this illustration is wonderful — it’s like a cross between the the bugs Bunny cartoon Hair Tonic and the Memphis furniture design from the 80s. Read more…
Tags: Japan, manga
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 17, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Television 
Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno played Bruce Banner and his musclebound alter ego, respectively, in the 70s television version of classic comic book series The Incredible Hulk. It ran for a good while, and was probably the most well-known and successful comic book-related TV series ever made. It looks like Marvel is hoping lightning will strike twice — they’ve announced plans to bring the green giant back to television. Stan Lee is excited, and you should be too, because guess who’s thrown his hat into the ring as a possible show runner? None either than Hellboy director and visionary filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro. We figure if there’s anybody who knows how to humanize monsters, it’s that guy. Read more…
Tags: The Incredible Hulk
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 15, 2010 in
Cinema,
Comic Books 
Sony is officially rebooting the Spiderman franchise, and they have their Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and their Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). But the question on everyone’s mind isn’t who Spiderman is smoochin’ on, it’s who he’s swingin’ at! And it looks like we may finally have our answer. Actor Rhys Ifans was recently added to the cast in the role of the film’s villain, but we didn’t have any idea as to who he was playing until now. The Wrap reports that Ifans, a Welsh actor perhaps best known in America for his role in Notting Hill, will be playing classic Spidey villain The Lizard, a.k.a. Doc Connors. We haven’t heard anything from Sony yet, so take the news with a grain of salt, but it does seem like a pretty good fit. Read more…
Tags: Spiderman
Posted by Christian Liendo on Oct 11, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
This is part of our collection of the best cosplay at New York Comic Con 2010:
Read more…
Tags: cosplay, New York Comic Con 2010
Posted by Christian Liendo on Oct 11, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
Sadly New York Comic Con 2010 has come to an end — but what impressed me is that I think in the long term this may turn out to be the one show that can rival the San Diego Comic Con. Part of my evidence for this was the sheer scale of the number of quality cosplayers that could be spotted at the con. Here is our collection of our top 100 photos that we captured this past weekend:
Read more…
Tags: cosplay, New York Comic Con 2010
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 9, 2010 in
Cinema,
Comic Books 
I see it time after time again: A new film opens packed with hype, does poor box office and then fades away within a week. A good pulse check of this is if you see any cosplay related to said property even a month after the film is heading to video — so I was very pleased to see the above Scott Pilgrim cosplayer at New York Comic Con on Friday. I think too many reviewer got lost with the videogame story telling style and lost fact that Pilgrim is really an A+ geeky romance film that speaks to a generation (or two).
Tags: cosplay, New York Comic Con 2010, Scott Pilgrim
Posted by Christian Liendo on Oct 9, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
With the addition of the New York Anime Festival to the New York Comic Con non-anime cosplayers have been forced to step up their game to gain attention — and from the looks of these photos competition can be a very good thing!
Read more…
Tags: cosplay, New York Comic Con 2010
Posted by Christian Liendo on Oct 9, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
New York Comic Con opened up today and this year since it’s been combined with the New York Anime Festival it’s bigger than ever. Here are a few shots from the showroom floor to give to a taste of the show:
Read more…
Tags: New York Comic Con 2010
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 5, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Rian Hughes is a very talented illustrator, typographer and designer which is why I’m looking ahead to seeing On The Line which will be published in December by Image Comics. This book will be a complete collection of his newspaper strips drawn for The Guardian newspaper in England. In the strip Hughes draws a great deal of inspiration from the old modernist UPA cartoons that Gene Deitch did in the 50s.
Tags: Image Comics
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Oct 5, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Tech 
These days, it seems everyone thinks they can have a web comic. I’m sure that’s probably why I don’t often read them, at least, not the ones that lack art in favor of snark. I’m not sure why, but I suppose on some fundamental level, I just object to the idea of reading witty blocks of text that could have been blogged, or otherwise printed instead of uploaded as a JPEG. And then, to call it a comic on top of that just adds insult to injury — it’s not a comic, it’s lazy. Occasionally though, these “comics” hit the nail on the head. One such was The Oatmeal‘s recent rant about the various e-mails we deal with on a day to day basis. Read more…
Tags: Internet Meme
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 4, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Shown above is a preview of the cover for Viking, Vol. 1: The Long Cold Fire which will be published in December 8th by Image Comics. What drew me to this illustration by Nic Klein is the wonderful level of detail in his model combined with a feeling of motion that reminds me a great deal of Japanese manga panels. But the two things that make this cover stand out are the nice use of negative space in the upper left where you eye first reads the artwork — that an the bold use of yellow is a real wiining combination. As this is a preview the artwork may change, but like what I see here.
Tags: Image Comics
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 3, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
Most studios are okay with just using ads and merchandising tie-ins to drum up publicity for their upcoming animated films, but not Dreamworks. No, they had something much bigger in mind to promote Megamind, Will Ferrell’s upcoming CG superhero movie: they wanted to break a world record. Specifically, the record for most superheroes gathered in a single place. And they did it! In Los Angeles’ Nokia Plaza, over 1501 people showed up in superhero garb, edging out the previous record gathering of 1500 costumed crimefighters. Let’s hope that the movie, out November 5th, is worth this kind of (admittedly awesome) publicity. Read more…
Tags: Guinness World Record, Megamind
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 2, 2010 in
Animation,
Comic Books 
…he showed up at Marvel HQ and told them so! Isaiah Mustafa (himself a big ol’ geek who even went to Comic-Con) has said several times that he wants to play Marvel brawler Luke Cage in a movie, but this time he took matters into his own hands, showing up at Marvel in the flesh. They filmed this great riff on his famous “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ads with Old Spice while he was there, using action figures and superimposing Mustafa’s head over Luke Cage’s plastic incarnation. Personally? I think he’s got the chops. The karate chops. Read more…
Tags: Isaiah Mustafa, Luke Cage
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 2, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Fandom 
San Diego Comic-Con is the biggest event in geek culture, the Mecca toward which all self-respecting nerds point themselves once a year. But it almost became Los Angeles Comic-Con, or Anaheim Comic-Con, thanks to price gouging by local venues and hotels looking to capitalize on the 130,000 fans who flock to the area every year. Negotiations were fierce to cash in on the $150+ million dollars the event brings local tourism — Los Angeles reportedly offered the administrators convention space at no cost — but in the end, the con’s old home beat out all comers. Comic-Con will remain in San Diego, at least until 2015. Sorry, Anaheim — looks like you’ll have to lean on BlizzCon for another five years. Read more…
Tags: comic-con
Posted by Guest Author on Oct 1, 2010 in
Comic Books 
The Fart Party Vol 2 by Julia Wertz
Julia breaks up with her boyfriend from Volume 1. Volume 2 is her depiction of things as she goes on her life, leaving San Francisco to move to New York. All this is done in a cartoony way. You can either empathize with her, or just believe that she should get her life out of a ditch and just take life as it is. But if you believe the second option I just mentioned, then clearly she shouldn’t have written this book, and what a loss that would have been. Read more…
Tags: Julia Wertz
Posted by Michael Sacco on Oct 1, 2010 in
Cinema,
Comic Books 
It’s not like there was ever really a doubt in the matter, but given that there’s been no word about it either way, one could perhaps get a little antsy as to whether or not visionary director Christopher Nolan would be returning to direct the third installment in the rebooted Batman franchise. Well, doubt no more! Empire recently spoke with the man himself, and he sort kind of semi-confirmed he’d be helming the new Batman film. Though he waffled a bit at the beginning of the interview, with a little prodding he said we can safely assume that he’s directing. The site was also able to confirm that there’s even a script, written by his brother Jonathan — again, no surprise, but comforting news to fans of the superb previous two films. Read more…
Tags: Batman
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Sep 28, 2010 in
Comic Books 
I’ve seen Camilla D’Errico everywhere these last few years, and she’s been doing quite well for herself. Aside from simply being an amazing artist, she’s been marketing everything from plushies and clothing, to iPhone cases, and more. While I had been more familiar with her own creations, such as the Tanpopo and Burn, it hasn’t surprised me that her latest work, Sky Pirates of Neo Terra, has managed to turn a few heads. With her Japanese-inspired aesthetic, Camilla’s art is a perfect fit for the series, captured in the upcoming graphic novel. If you’re curious, it’ll contain the first five issues. The release date has yet to be announced, but you can pre-order a copy from Amazon by clicking here, and check her official site for updates.
Read more…
Tags: Camilla D’Errico
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 27, 2010 in
Comic Books 
On thing you can say about manga is that it hasn’t gone to the dogs — I’ve recently caught three cat items that got my attention in the manga world. Shown above is the cover of volume of On Thursday Furutto which is a cat gag manga that was just released. Below is another kawaii girl and her cute but slightly oversized kitty which is from a new manga series that will appear in IKKI magazine: Read more…
Tags: cats, Japan, manga
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 26, 2010 in
Comic Books,
Tech 
The tech fanboy in me loves this: Tta me! is a four-frame comic that’s been published as a proper full volume. The manga isn’t so much a Twitter how-to book but rather focuses on the social media service as a comedic/romantic plot device. Tta me! is written by Kawamura Kazuhiro and illustrated by Ajiko Kozima — and it’s available at Amazon.jp here. Read more…
Tags: Japan, manga, Twitter
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 24, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Not so long ago New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger admitted that the New York Times may stop publishing a printed version in the near future. Of course the newspaper of record is an exception to the rule, so one should expect other publication formats to follow suite — and that very much will include comic books. My gut feeling tells me that while coffee table collector editions will be here for eons that the bread-and-butter comic book that you see published by Marvel and DC won’t be around in a few years. Read more…
Tags: DC Comics, iPad, Marvel
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 21, 2010 in
Comic Books 
This amazing set of beautiful posters were designed to celebrate the work of manga artist Takashi Yanase (by the way he’s over 90 years old!). His best known work is Anpanman which has never really caught on in United States, but I’d dare say it’s one of the best know manga (and anime) kids series in Japan. If you’re lucky enough to be in Japan there will be an exhibition of his work at the Kyoto International Manga Museum which starts on October 2. Read more…
Tags: Anpanman, Japan, manga
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 20, 2010 in
Comic Books 
Cowboy Ninja Viking #9 will be hitting your local comic book shop this Wednesday, and if you haven’t been following this series it’s well worth checking out. While the title is gimmicky (the only two words missing are zombie and vampire) this book has a nice stripped down art style with a limited color palette that shows off the draftsmanship of Riley Rossmo: Read more…
Tags: Image Comics
