Nobody seems to know how Marvel will react to this, however a number of weblogs have posted a leaked trailer for the upcoming Thor film set to release next May. The 5 minute trailer premiered at San Diego Comic-Con International last week, but it wasn’t long before someone managed to leak it to the net and it’s since spread like wildfire. While I’m not about to join everyone else in posting the trailer, I’d gladly point you all in the right direction. My suggestion? Watch it before the cease and desist letters are sent out, because it’s bound to happen. As for the trailer itself, Chris Hemsworth, and Natalie Portman look promising. It’ll be interesting to see how they transition from Asgard to Earth and vice-versa. At least we can expect plenty of action. Click here to see the trailer while it’s still on the net.
Last year, Marvel Animation discussed their upcoming forays into the realm of Japanese animation by debuting several concept trailers featuring two of their most popular characters, Wolverine and Iron Man. I had enjoyed the trailers, but we were left wanting more, and there had been no updates regarding either series — that was, until last weekend. We have yet to hear more regarding Wolverine, but Marvel debuted the first official teaser trailer for their upcoming Iron Man anime, which will debut on G4HD next year. In it, we briefly see a mid-air battle between Iron Man and his government owned counterpart War Machine. There are still no details regarding the plot of the series, but I imagine we’ll learn more in the months to come. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jul 27, 2010 in Comic Books
With the recent passing of Al Williamson, I thought it might be nice to give another nod to one of the series that made him famous, Flash Gordon. Of course, I’m well aware that he didn’t have anything to do with Alex Raymond’s original Sunday strips, but they were indeed the inspiration needed to launch his storied career. IDW recently announced that those original Sunday strips will be completely remastered, alongside Jungle Jim, in a 12 x 16 inch “champagne” format. Read more…
You’ve read the manga, you’ve watched the anime — but is there a way to actually have Chi as your pet? Most likely not, but this Chi’s Sweet Home Futari Plush is pretty darn close and doesn’t require you to clean up a litter box. Meow!Read more…
HBO’s True Blood has been a huge success, no doubt due in part to the Vampire craze that’s plagued the nation since Twilight hit the scene. It might be slightly more overplayed than mixing zombies with our favorite Sci-Fi series, but that certainly won’t stop anyone from watching the show — or, reading the comic. That’s right, IDW has picked up the license to the hit show and will now be publishing the True Blood comics. The first issue should be available in stores now, but a special edition is available at San Diego Comic Con with a limited edition wrap-around cover. The comic should continue the on-going adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and her lover Bill. No word on if the series will actually feature any cannon storylines, but I imagine it won’t unless the producers get involved.
If you’re like me, odds are that you never get around to collecting comics. It’s not that we don’t want to read them, but with so many being released, sometimes we just can’t make it to the store in a timely manner. Thankfully IDW’s already thought of a solution to all our problems — the almighty omnibus. Their latest, entitled Star Trek: The Original Series Omnibus, combines a number of Original Series comics such as Year Four, the Enterprise Experiment, Alien Spotlights and more.
Shigeru Mizuki is the master of Japanese horror manga and he’ll be honored with a large scale exhibition in Japan which kicks off on August 11, and runs until August 23, 2010. The exhibit will show off original work from GeGeGe no Kitaro (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎) and Mr. Devil manga series and other personal item associated with the master. Here’s a preview of some of the drawings that will be on display: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Illustrator Shigeyuki Fukumitsu created this hamburger themed manga shopping bag for Village Vanguard, a bookstore chain in Japan. What’s funny about it is that the illustration reminds me a great deal of the character Wimpy from Popeye who unlike his vegan sailor pal loved hamburgers: Read more…
Forbidden Planet in New York City is still very much open, but sadly the shop today is less than 50% of the size that it was in the 80s. This stunning set of videos gives a tour of the place and serves as a vivid time capsule what a comic book shop on steroids looked like back in the day. My art school was just a few blocks away from this place and I spent so many lunch hours there back in the day, so this video brings back a ton of memories: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 12, 2010 in Comic Books
To commemorate the July 13th release of the second volume of Koharu Perfect Weather there will be a competition in japan to win the really cool fan shown above. While the language barrier to enter the contest be a bit much for English speaking otaku you can order the manga in Japanese via Amazon.co.jp if you love dog themed manga: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 12, 2010 in Comic Books
With X-Force: Sex and Violence #1 illustrator Gabrielle Del’otto has done a great job of making an everyday Marvel comic book feel like a graphic novel. What makes the artwork look so good is that Gabrielle has abandoned the traditional ink lines that have defined comics since their inception and has instead made every panel look like a painting. Usually Marvel might do this with a cover, but not the entire book — and I’d wish that they’d do this more often looking at the results: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 5, 2010 in Comic Books
If you’re lucky enough to be in Japan this July do yourself a favor and make it a point to see an exhibition which will be honoring Machiko Hasegawa (長谷川町子) at the Sazae Setagaya Literary Museum (here’s an Adobe Acrobat file with details in Japanese). Machiko lived from 1920 until 1992 and her best known work is her comic strip Sazae-san (サザエさん) which focused on modern family life in Japan during the post-war era. The manga was one of the longest running comics series in Japan (about 10,000 strips!) and lasted from 1946 until 1974 when Machiko retired. But it wasn’t just the quality and the quantity of her work that Machiko Hasegawa stand out as she was one of the first women manga artists in Japan, which is why I wish that more otaku knew about her work. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 4, 2010 in Comic Books
This August 2010 cover of Monthly Shonen Rival caught my eye because of the very hungry looking cat who seems to be enjoying eating a watermelon. The cat and cat girl are from the manga Was in! Medium Teacher (ほんとにあった！霊媒先生) which just published its fifth volume: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 3, 2010 in Comic Books
Superman and Batman were both born in the Great Depression and focused on subjects that were popular in that era like fighting crime — however Captain America came about as a direction reaction to World War II by writer Joe Simon and illustrator Jack Kirby. And what’s interesting is that the first issue actually hit the newsstands in December of 1940 which was a full year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor when America entered the war. So it’s fair to say that Captain America was actually a political cartoon above all else, in fact the character was created as a reaction to the opponents of the war who were quite organized at the time. Read more…
The late 70s wasn’t the best of time for the comic book biz so Marvel took a look at Dynamite magazine and Starlog magazine and created their own youth culture magazine called Pizzazz. The magazine was an amazing mirror of pop culture during the disco era of 1977 until 1979 and lasted a total of 16 issues. The inside of the publication featured articles on popular films, a Star Wars comic and even a one pager by Harvey Kurtzman. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 28, 2010 in Comic Books
In the upcoming issue of Deadpool: Wade Wilson’s War #2 which comes out this Wednesday will feature a scene with the King of Pop — or rather a character wearing a Michael Jackson mask as seen above. There’s something a bit morbid about the reference, although I think it’s that offbeat sense of humor that always made me admire Deadpool above other Marvel Comics. I should add that Jason Pearson does a nice job of keeping the action going from page-to-page: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 27, 2010 in Comic Books
ArchieComics.com has published a long lost unpublished comic Iron Curtain Caper from the 50s which features the adventures of Archie’s cousin Andy Andrews who is an “ex Ivy league halfback, ex all-American, ex Captain in the United States Army who’s now a reporter for an American foreign news syndicate!” The first thing that I noticed looking at this unpublished comic book from the Cold War era is that the draftsmanship and inking work is amazing. What I also like about the book is that it shows you what a more action hero version of Archie would have looked like. At the end of the day I can see why this series wasn’t published — it was just too far away from the Archie comics brand which was more about romance and humor than action and adventure. But it’s nice to see what might have been. Read more…
Having managed to run the most popular X-Men characters into the ground in a mere four films (“mere” given the sheer volume of characters to make use of), Fox’s X-Men: First Class is starting to look like one of those movies that’s the fourth or fifth flick in a popular movie franchise, where the movie gets released directly to DVD and stars an entirely different (and cheaper) cast than the original. Read more…
Last week, famed comic-artist and illustrator Al Williamson passed away at the age of 79. I do find it difficult to sum up my feelings regarding his passing, but perhaps I can provide some perspective for those of you who may not already be familiar with the man. As both an artist and inker, Williamson’s work meant a great deal to both readers and fellow artists alike, and I feel it’s safe to say it has had a tremendous impact on comics as we know them today.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 21, 2010 in Comic Books
I’m always knocked out when ever I see a cover by Felipe Smith! Shown above is a cover from his latest manga which combines an vivid color palette of pinks, yellow and lime green with some very dynamic draftsmanship and composition. Smith of course is an America living in Japan, but I dare say that he’s really earned the right to use the term manga to describe his work.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 21, 2010 in Comic Books
Liquid City, Volume 2 looks like a must read item if you call yourself any kind of manga fanboy (or fangurl). This second volume in the series is due out at the end of September and features the work of a collection of artists from Southeast Asia. The beautiful cover shown above is by Shelly Wan and the book features work by Lat, Sonny Liew, Miel and Charlene Chua: Read more…
Sure it’s not Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, or even IDW, but if you haven’t read any of Boom! Studios’ comics since its inception back in 2005, you’ve really missed out on some amazing work. With licensed works based on films like Die Hard and 28 Days Later you really can’t go wrong — not to mention their outstanding line-up of original content that spans a variety of different genres. However, missing out can be easily remedied thanks to their recently released iPad app which promises to deliver roughly 50 titles straight to your iPad for a reasonable price. The app itself is built on the comiXology engine, the same engine used by other publishers such as Marvel and IDW. To download the app, or to learn more, check out the app store website.Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Dark Horse is reprinting The Goon Volume 4: Virtue and the Grim Consequences Thereof which would normally be a non-event for yours truly. However they’ve gone the extra stretch and had Eric Powell do a new cover (shown above) which just looks brilliant. What makes Powell so unique is that he’s able to combine pull off a combination of an pulp magazine cover that you might have seen back in the day with just the right touch of cartoonishness.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 14, 2010 in Comic Books
I was pleasantly surprised to see that on Wednesday BOOM! Studios be taking their first steps as a publisher and putting out a real book which will be a collection of New Yorker styled cartoons by Shannon Wheeler with the title I Thought You Would Be Funnier. On the surface creating a New Yorker cartoon seem dead simple — they’re black and white, not always exquisitely drawn and have to have a clever punchline. However just try coming up with a few of these on your own and you’ll see just how hard it is to do something original or even just funny. So the few artists that can get their work published are always worth taking a look at — and in this case Wheeler deserves your admiration as he paid his dues with the cult comic Too Much Coffee Man. Here’s a preview of his book which make me smile a few times: Read more…
