Here’s an even more eclectic list than the Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominees: The graphic novel contenders for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award: Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgol (First Second) Locke & Key, Volume 4, by Joe Hill (artist: Gabriel Rodriguez) (IDW) Green River Killer, by Jeff Jensen (artist: Jonathan Case) (Dark [...]

Here’s an even more eclectic list than the Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominees: The graphic novel contenders for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award:

Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgol (First Second)
Locke & Key, Volume 4, by Joe Hill (artist: Gabriel Rodriguez) (IDW)
Green River Killer, by Jeff Jensen (artist: Jonathan Case) (Dark Horse)
Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine, by Jonathan Maberry (penciler: Laurence Campbell) (Marvel)
Baltimore: The Plague Ships, by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (artist: Ben Stenbeck; colorist: Dave Stewart) (Dark Horse)
Neonomicon, by Alan Moore (artist: Jacen Burrows) (Avatar Press)

I added in the artists because apparently the Stoker folks were only thinking about writers. I’m impressed with how broad the selection of books is, given that they all qualify as “horror” to someone: Anya’s Ghost, while genuinely scary, is a teenage ghost story, Green River Killer is true crime, Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine is a superhero story, admittedly with something that sounds a lot like a zombie twist. The other three are closer to what I think of when I think of “horror,” but they are all still quite different from one another.

Mark Waid has told In Media Res of his plans to launch a number of webcomics this summer, and has been experimenting with the medium to create works that go beyond what the printed page can offer. He writes; As I proceed, my artists and I are constantly learning more about what does and doesn’t...

Mark Waid has told In Media Res of his plans to launch a number of webcomics this summer, and has been experimenting with the medium to create works that go beyond what the printed page can offer.

He writes;

As I proceed, my artists and I are constantly learning more about what does and doesn’t work with digital. Yet without resorting to the crutch of cheap, limited animation, we’re still able to suggest movement by altering the art between panels on the “page turn” that happens when the reader taps the left or right edge of the screen. We can break long captions or art elements into pieces that seem to “drop in” as the pages are turned. And we’re only just beginning to learn.

Here is a sample of his digital comic Luther.

It resembles very much the digital comic Valentine by Alex De Campi and Christine Larsen, specifically the way the speech balloons appear on a panel after the panel appears, stretching out the story flow.

The idea of changing previous panels as you uncover new ones is intriguing however. I wonder how a digital version of the Matt Feazell strip where he borrows money from himself in the future might work?

 

Mark Waid made his career in print comics, but over the past few years he has become increasingly involved in digital work, and this short video demonstrates where his thinking is going. Waid believes that the day of the print-first comic is coming to an end, and that creators should be designing their comics with [...]

Mark Waid made his career in print comics, but over the past few years he has become increasingly involved in digital work, and this short video demonstrates where his thinking is going. Waid believes that the day of the print-first comic is coming to an end, and that creators should be designing their comics with the digital reading experience in mind.

Most “digital comics” offered by large publishers are little more than clunky adaptations of previously existing material first designed for standard portrait-format print comics, not for landscape-format monitors and tablets. When reading a print comic, you can see the entire page at once, and artists use that as a design tool. But print comics captured on the screen are almost always too large to “take in” without scrolling about or enlarging or isolating individual panels—the comics equivalent of the old “pan-and-scan” evil of presenting widescreen movies on square televisions by inelegant cropping and editing. Hence, my new passion.

In the video above, Waid demonstrates his new type of comic on his iPad, although it must be said that this wheel has already been invented, at least in part, by the webcomics crowd. Dan Goldman’s Red Light Properties, for instance, has the same sort of “page turn” that Waid uses — story elements appear or the panel shifts as the reader taps (on Waid’s iPad) or clicks (on Goldman’s webcomic). Scott McCloud was talking about the “infinite canvas” years ago, and a lot of webcomics creators already work in a horizontal format that is appropriate for computer screens. That doesn’t mean Waid’s work isn’t important, though; as a prominent creator and thinker, he is likely to have both the audience and the creativity to push this medium to the next level.

(via Comics Alliance)

The new Nerdist YouTube channel is hosting the first look at the Plastic Man shorts that will be airing shortly on DC Nation. As we reported earlier, Tom Kenny voices Plas, while Andy Suriano and Stephen DeStefano are involved in the animation—the John K. influence is strong but it works with the character.

The new Nerdist YouTube channel is hosting the first look at the Plastic Man shorts that will be airing shortly on DC Nation. As we reported earlier, Tom Kenny voices Plas, while Andy Suriano (and hopefully Stephen DeStefano?) is doing the animation—the John K. influence is strong but it works with the character.

DC Nation premieres on March 3 and will also include shorts for Amethyst, Super Best Friends Forever, Batman, Doom Patrol and many more.

This is Mikel Janin’s cover to Justice League Dark #6, out today. Or rather, this is the solicited version, featuring Zatanna in some kind of basque thing. Because the version that actually bring, makes a couple of changes.   Suddenly Zatanna’s neck line has dropped, the zip is been pulled down a little. Say, looking...

This is Mikel Janin’s cover to Justice League Dark #6, out today. Or rather, this is the solicited version, featuring Zatanna in some kind of basque thing. Because the version that actually bring, makes a couple of changes.

 

Suddenly Zatanna’s neck line has dropped, the zip is been pulled down a little. Say, looking at Constantine, there’s no chance he was using some kind of latent telepathy is there?

“Pots gnikool ta ym stit…”

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics, London.

Fans who can’t get enough of Dragon Age have the chance to return to Thedas today and revisit three of the characters they got to know over the course of the original video game and its sequel, as Dark Horse Comics and BioWare team up for a new story starring the saucy pirate Isabela, wisecracking [...]

Fans who can’t get enough of Dragon Age have the chance to return to Thedas today and revisit three of the characters they got to know over the course of the original video game and its sequel, as Dark Horse Comics and BioWare team up for a new story starring the saucy pirate Isabela, wisecracking Varric and the king of Ferelden himself, Alistar Therein. The bi-weekly series is available through Dark Horse’s digital comics store starting today, with a collection due from the publisher in July.

The other piece of good news for fans is that the comic is written by David Gaider, BioWare’s lead writer for both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, as well as the author of the three Dragon Age novels that have been released. Gaider teams up with Alexander Freed, who is writing the script, and artist Chad Hardin to bring the characters from your Playstation 3, X-Box 360 or PC to the comic page.

Gaider was kind enough to answer a few questions about his background, the comic and his work on the Dragon Age franchise in general. My thanks for his time.

JK Parkin: I hear you were a comic fan and even a budding comic artist back in the day. What were some of your favorite comics, and do you still read them today?

David Gaider: I don’t read any of the comics today that I used to follow—which were mostly superhero titles like the X-Men, though I doubt that’s surprising. The comics I read today are almost exclusively collected editions: The Walking Dead and Fables being current examples.

JK: Tell me a little bit about your day job writing video games — what does it entail? And what else have you worked on besides Dragon Age?

David Gaider: As a writer, it’s my job to help set up the narrative structure of the game… which is to say I’ll create the story and the quests, and work with the other teams to get them implemented in the game engine. It’s also a writer’s job to create all the dialogue, which (for BioWare games) is a hefty proposition. I started with the company back when they started work on “Baldur’s Gate II”, and went on to write for “Knights of the Old Republic” and “Neverwinter Nights” before we moved onto the Dragon Age series.

JK Parkin: You’ve written for three different media now in regards to Dragon Age. How has the transition from writing games to novels, and now comics, been? What have you found challenging and rewarding about working on the new comic series?

David Gaider: Every medium has its pros and cons, obviously. Games have a heavy resource demand, but offer interactivity. Novels offer the freedom of using narrative, but have no visual element. Comics are a nice middle ground, though I think I found it hardest to structure the story so that the arc fit into the pages we had available. Not as easy to wrap your head around telling a story in that manner as one might think.

JK Parkin: The series will be released “digital first” via Dark Horse’s webstore and comics app. Did the format and frequency affect how you approached the story?

David Gaider: Only insofar as the first six issues being broken up in 12 pages each—which affected how you pace the story. Instead of having one long arc over 22-24 pages, you need a story that has many smaller arcs.

JK Parkin: The comic features three of my favorites characters from the game, and although I was never so cruel and heartless in my multiple playings to ever deny Alistar the throne or turn Isabela over to the Qunari, it is possible that some players sent these two characters down different, perhaps even fatal, paths. How do you decide what’s “canon” for the comics and novels when the game has divergent paths and sometimes multiple endings for each of the characters?

David Gaider: There’s no way that a novel or a comic book can take into account player choices—you can’t “upload” your ending and get the comic story personalized to your experience, after all. While I could have written something that went out of its way to avoid using any existing characters or any mention of plots that occurred, that seemed like it would be a waste. So for some players, this is a “what if” type of alternate world, and assumes these characters followed a particular path after the first two games. As for how we chose which path that would be? The one that led to the best dialogue, of course.

JK Parkin: What do you like about these three characters in particular? And how do they end up together on this adventure?

David Gaider: You wouldn’t expect to find Alistair (especially when he’s a king) associating with Varric and Isabela, would you? Alistair has recruited them for a personal mission—for reasons that will be explained in the comic. As for why I used them, primarily it was because I enjoy them so much… but also because they still had room for me to explore.

JK Parkin: One of the great things about the Dragon Age novels you wrote is that they aren’t just set in the world of Dragon Age, but they actually tie into events referenced in the game and even reveal some pretty big secrets about some of the characters (I’m thinking of the end of the second novel in particular here). Can we expect that from the comics as well?

David Gaider: Yes. I mean, we could just present you an adventure that was completely unrelated to anything going on in the rest of Dragon Age… but what would be the fun in that?

JK Parkin: The solicitations for the print collection of the series have already hit, and it mentions that a certain “Witch of the Wild” will make an appearance. Will we learn any more about her bigger agenda? And can we expect any other cameos or guest stars from DA favorites along the way?

David Gaider: Possibly, and yes—though not necessarily right away.

JK Parkin: Are there plans for more comics after this one, maybe featuring other characters, locations or plotlines you haven’t had a chance to flesh out yet?

David Gaider: Ideally there would be. I guess it depends on how much interest there is in the series.

JK Parkin: And finally, what are you guys working on in terms of the game — will there be more DLC for Dragon Age 2, or are you already working on the third installment?

David Gaider: Ahh, I wish I could tell you this stuff. Projects which haven’t been announced are strictly verboten, however. Sorry!

With the record breaking smash release of Star Wars XXX, it’s time for director and producer Axel Braun to turn his attention back to comics. And the two latest porn parody productions coming from Vivid Video are She Hulk XXX and Thor XXX. And yet again, they are being created by people with Wrestler-turned-porn star...

With the record breaking smash release of Star Wars XXX, it’s time for director and producer Axel Braun to turn his attention back to comics. And the two latest porn parody productions coming from Vivid Video are She Hulk XXX and Thor XXX. And yet again, they are being created by people with

Wrestler-turned-porn star Chyna will play Jennifer Walters, the She Hulk, and is joined (literally in some cases) by Gracie Glam, Lexie Belle, Jennifer Dark, Nicole Aniston, Alexis Texas, Mark Wood, Alec Knight, Alan Staford, Ryan Driller, Dale Dabone and Eric Masterson.

Hang on, Eric Masterson was Thor at one point right? Or Thunderstrike at least?

While Thor XXX stars Jean Valjean, with other charactrs including The Enchantress and The Executioner. The cast includes Jessie Andrew, Kimberly Kane, Julia Ann, Tara Lynn Foxx, Tommy Pistol, Mark Davis, Dick Chibbles and Dick Delaware.

Filming in Los Angeles will take place in March, Bleeding Cool has been invited to the set. Sadly, that’s a little to far to travel for London. But if anyone fancies the assignment…?

It’s taken just over five years to get there, but Marvel’s The Twelve is finally nearing its conclusion with the second-to-last issue, The Twelve #10, due in stores today. And no one could be more excited than artist Chris Weston. When Weston was approached in 2007 to draw J. Michael Straczynski’s story of a group [...]

It’s taken just over five years to get there, but Marvel’s The Twelve is finally nearing its conclusion with the second-to-last issue, The Twelve #10, due in stores today. And no one could be more excited than artist Chris Weston. When Weston was approached in 2007 to draw J. Michael Straczynski’s story of a group of WW2 heroes lost in time until the modern day, it was a unique chance for the celebrated UK artist to create a time-spanning work on what would be the biggest stage in the industry. But between Straczynski and Weston’s commitments outside of comics, the production went through numerous stops and starts, which led to the 12-issue series taking nearly four years to complete. But with Weston finishing the art on the book last September, he celebrated the end of one chapter of his life and the beginning of a new one.

In the build-up to working on The Twelve, Weston expanded his horizons and began doing storyboards and concept designs for the movie The Book Of Eli. Over the course of The Twelve, and thanks in part to the delays the book had, Weston did extensive work on The Book of Eli as well as director Albert Hughes’ aborted remake of Akira. Currently working on Hughes’ next feature, Motor City, Weston plans to use the money he makes to fund his most ambitious project yet: writing and drawing his own comic series. Weston has done creator-owned work in the past with other writers and has also written smaller works on their own, but this new pursuit, both writing and drawing the material, could be one of the most risky and potentially most rewarding jobs of his career. 2012 will be a formidable time for the artist as he prepares for what comes next.

Chris Arrant: First off, can you tell us what you’re working on today?

Chris Weston: I am “between jobs” at the moment. I’m reluctant to take on anything substantial as I’m getting ready to work on Albert Hughes’ next movie, Motor City. I really want to avoid another situation where my film work coincides with my comic-book work. Unfortunately, that has meant turning down some pretty cool comic-book jobs. I’m not going to name them as it would be unfair to the artists who eventually accepted them. However, I’m keeping myself occupied by doing a few covers for 2000AD, some personal drawings, research and private commissions.

Arrant: Can you say what your projects on the horizon are this year in addition to Motor City?

Weston: Well, I can’t really see beyond Motor City yet. I’m hoping that I’ll make enough money on that film to finance my own creator-owned comic book projects. More recently, I have just completed a one-off Judge Dredd story called “The Death of DAN-E Cannon.” I poured heart and soul into that job. I wanted it to be a kind of “comeback” for me after the years I spent on The Twelve. This is “Full-Strength Weston”: script, art and colours all by myself, and hopefully it will remind people of what I do best: weird, black-humoured sci-fi.

Arrant: Where does “The Death of DAN-E Cannon” appear so U.S. readers can track it down?

Weston: I’m waiting to hear back from Tharg on that one. I think “Green Pedestrian Palm” is one of the strips that will be reprinted in 2000AD‘s Free Comic Book Day sampler.

Arrant: Hearing you talk about creator-owned projects is exciting – I believe the only big ones you’ve done were The Filth and Ministry of Space. For these new ones, would you be writing and drawing it yourself? Can you talk about these ideas at all?

Weston: Don’t forget Time Breakers! But yeah, The Filth and Ministry of Space are the big two. The last creator-owned IPs on the shelf, I call them! One day Hollywood will come sniffing round them, I’m sure. One day …!

In the meantime I do have plans to write and draw some of my own creator-owned projects. The plan is to work on Motor City and then use the money I make from that to finance the production of my own books. It’s all early days really. I have about three ideas for books, all of which are historical in nature… all of which will require vast amount of research. I don’t know why I’m being drawn toward “Period-set” books. However I do think there is a gap in the market for them. I’d love to do a Western at some point, that’s the genre that’s attracting me the most at the moment. I have no idea if the audience has any appetite for a Western, but that’s not even a consideration, to be honest. I want to produce the books that I think are missing from the market. The European comic-book market is a far more open to broader subject matters and I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that the American market is heading that way too. The sales of super-hero books aren’t holding up as well as they used to; maybe it’s time for something new to fill that vacuum.

Arrant: This all comes about after you finished your big comics project for the past few years, The Twelve. Not to diminish that series in any way, but what’s it like to finally move past that project?

Weston: It has come as a great relief. I love The Twelve; I think Joe Straczynski wrote a great script packed full of terrific characters… I couldn’t be more happy with the finished project… BUT it was an arduous and frustrating project to work on! I never signed up for such a major project; it was sold to me as a six-part series, possibly eight, and even then I was hesitant to sign up for such a long haul. However, the job soon started growing beyond even that… but by then I was committed and had to see it through. I’ll hold my hand up and admit that some of the delays on that book were my doing (whilst I worked on The Book of Eli and Akira), so I’m not going to start flinging muck at others. I’ll take my portion of the blame on the chin. I felt the readers’ frustration, and sometimes I shared it.
But it’s all water under the bridge now, and I don’t want to see the controversy obscure what will be a cracking good read once it’s collected as a graphic novel.

Arrant: One thing the unexpected delays did allow is time for you to spread your wings and engage in writing more comics. I believe your first published comics writing was the short in Event Horizon for Mam Tor, but your biggest one yet was the one-shot The Twelve: Spearhead. As a long-time comics artist, 23 years to be exact, what’s it like to be able to step in and dream up the ideas you’ll illustrate?

Weston: It seems quite natural. I’m a geek, I spend all day in solitude, my head filling up with ideas for stories and new characters. It comes as a great relief to get the opportunity to metaphorically “trepan” myself; to get these “demons” out of my skull and into the world. Over the years, I’ve worked with THE BEST: Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Joe Casey and Joe Straczynski. You can’t help but pick up a few tricks along on the way.

Arrant: When you do get the opportunity to write the comics you draw, does it change the way you approach it when it comes time to draw?

Weston: Not at all. I write all my scripts as if they are intended for another artist. In fact, the Terror Tale I wrote, “Counts As One Choice” was written for Frazer Irving to draw, but he was unavailable. I had Dave “The Governor” Gibbons in mind for “Whatever Happened to The Green Pedestrian Palm?” Whenever one thinks of paunchy super-heroes, Dave Gibbons will always come to mind! Heh! In fact, Dave once drew the comic-book adventures of “The Green Cross Code Man”, a super-hero devised by the UK National Road Safety Committee to teach kids how to cross the street without getting run over. Dave “Darth Vader” Prowse portrayed him on TV in a series of infomercials; you can see them on YouTube.

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand: no, it doesn’t change my approach. It never crosses my mind to cheat, or make things easier for myself by giving myself familiar subject matters. Neither do I see it as an opportunity to provide myself with a series of splash pages that will net me a nice bonus payment once I come to sell the original art.

Arrant: I really enjoyed that Future Shock you just mentioned, “Whatever Happened To The Green Pedestrian Palm?” I’ve read that writing those shorts and fitting a story into that small page count can be laborious. How was it for you to not only do it, but do it both writing and drawing?

Weston: First of all, thanks. I’m a little bit reluctant to admit that I found the writing 2000AD stories quite easy. I’d been carrying those stories around in my head for years beforehand, so by the time I sat down to type them out the hard work was already done. The page count wasn’t a problem, as both those stories were basically one-line jokes. Both stemmed from personal bug-bears of mine: the first related my bad experiences with mail-order book companies. “Whatever Happened to the Green Pedestrian Palm” grew out of my frustration with advertising companies who think it would be impressive to create their own super-hero characters. It’s not a cool idea; it’s just really annoying. I had first hand experience of this: I was asked to draw this recycling-themed super-hero called “Captain Carbon.” I hated the idea, and instantly regretted agreeing to draw him. I’m not sure he ever saw the light of day. It got me wondering, though… what would Batman and Superman think of Captain Carbon or The Green Cross Code Man? I think they’d have a pretty low opinion of them.

Arrant:Another thing you got to do in the downtime during The Twelve was join the movie business, doing storyboards for the Hughes Bros. on both The Book of Eli and their take on the live-action Akira. What’s it like to get into this new kind of illustration?

Weston: I drew my first bit of art for The Book of Eli 14 months before The Twelve came out. If the film production hadn’t been delayed by the writer’s strike, if The Twelve had been its original length (and had the scripts been on time) I would have completed both jobs without any problems. However, shit happened and we ended up with a schedule clash.

I had a TERRIFYING first day on The Book of Eli! I drew about three incredibly large and detailed storyboards. I could see “Fire this asshole!” written all over the producer’s face, but Albert Hughes went out to bat for me and gave me time to speed up. It was a steep learning curve. I think everyone knows how much detail I put into my art, so it was quite daunting to scale it back a bit. Luckily, Albert Hughes seems to like my intricate style and was reluctant to see me loosen up too much. He calls me his “nuts and bolts guy” (amongst other less flattering but hopefully affectionate nicknames), ‘cos he likes the way I think through even the most incidental bit of detail.
The other terrifying part was having to abandon my reliance on photo reference. My comic-book work is very photo-ref heavy. On the storyboards I had to just go for it, and draw straight from my head onto a pad. That was scary… but I think i pulled it off okay. A new art style emerged from somewhere inside me; I quite liked it, too. But I’d be reluctant to bring that style back to comics with me. I’d probably make more money if I did, but I’d hate that feeling of doing “unfinished” art.

For most of my time on Book of Eli I was based in Albert’s office, so I had a front row seat for all the movie-making action. I’d be sat there in the corner, behind my pad, and the likes of Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman would be ambling to chat with Albert. I’d be all: “Don’t look up, Chris. Don’t stare. Just keep drawing. And keep your mouth shut.” No easy feat, as anyone who knows me will attest. There were quite a few “How did I get here?” moments. Akira was different: the entirety of my work on that aborted film was completed here in my studio in Eastbourne.

Arrant: People have seen pieces here and there of your storyboard work. Any plans to do a print collection of your movie work down the road at some point? I’d love to see all of it, especially those three large storyboards you did first!

Weston: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m currently looking into it. I’ll be publishing it myself, too, so I’m in the process of finding a decent printer. I’ll probably wait until I get permission to show the Akira work, and then, fingers crossed , we’ll be good to go. Also, there has been mention of revealing some of my art for Motor City quite soon as form of advance publicity, which would be really cool. I’ve already drawn what will probably be the “money shot” of the movie and I can’t wait to see it realised on the big screen.

Arrant: I’ve known you to study and do a lot of research when drawing comics – what kind of study and research did you do to understand the format and storytelling approach of storyboarding movies?

Weston: I’m a movie fan; I’ve got loads of those Art of … books that occasionally accompany a big movie’s release, presenting the best of the concept art and storyboards. I’d done my homework, and knew roughly what was expected of me. It still took a bit of getting used to, but I was fortunate to have a champion in Albert Hughes who was very patient with me and explained the more obscure photographic terms.

Arrant: Can you talk about your collaboration with director Albert Hughes? How did you two meet up?

Weston: I met Albert through Gary Whitta, the screenwriter of Book of Eli. Yes, I’m afraid it’s one of those “not what you know, but who you know” stories that used to annoy me so much when it happened to other people! I had drawn Gary a picture of the Eli character to go with his script; Albert saw it and asked me to redraw it to look like Denzel Washington. This led to a further round of character designs which eventually became part of the presentation package that was shown to the actor. When Denzel agreed to be part of the movie, Albert gave me the job of storyboard artist as a thank you. I was fortunate to have found two very decent and honourable guys in Albert and Gary.

Arrant: And what’s your collaborative process like now that you’re on your third project together?

Weston: It hasn’t changed much. Most of it is done over Skype. I’m in my freezing studio in rainy England and he’s either in L.A. or Prague… far more glamorous surroundings. We talk at least once a day: he’ll describe a shot to me, and I’ll draw it up. This will then go through a sequence of re-draws until I get it exactly the way he sees it in his head. He’s quite perfectionist, but also very forthcoming with praise when I eventually “nail” it, which I appreciate being your archetypal, shallow praise-junkie… like most artists.

Arrant: Before I let you get back to it, one last question. I’ve got your cover to the upcoming 35th Anniversary of 2000AD as my desktop wallpaper. That’s a special piece and a special issue to be able to draw, so can you talk about drawing that cover?

Weston: Thanks again. That cover sprung from a conversation I had with my artistic hero, Brian Bolland. I mentioned to him that I would like to see him draw a new, up-to-date version of his classic cover for the 2000AD Monthly US reprint comic. That was drawn way back in 1983… nearly thirty years ago!

Since then so many great new characters have appeared in the Prog’s pages and I thought it would be a good idea to see Brian’s take on them, using the same layout as his original page. Brian liked my idea, but suggested I should do it instead of him.

I filed the idea away, but it took another conversation with a different colleague to actually galvanise me into action. This fellow suggested that The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic wasn’t as good as it used to be. Now I wouldn’t hit a man wearing rose-tinted spectacles , so instead I decided to channel my outrage into this drawing that showcased some of the more recent characters who have graced the pages of 2000ad. That unfortunately ruled out Nemesis and Rogue Trooper as I didn’t want this to be a nostalgia piece; I wanted it to be a love-letter to the last few years of the comic’s history, an era I think will be seen as a second golden age.

I completed my rough version and sent it to 2000ad “on spec”. Tharg, the editor, seemed delighted with it. Only later did I discover it was going to be used as the cover for the 35th anniversary issue. I wanted this to be my own loving tribute to 2000ad and I am delighted it’s been selected to grace the cover of such a landmark issue. My only regret is i didn’t make it a double-page spread and include some of the older characters like Rogue, Nemesis, Ro-Jaws, Sam Slade and Kano on the back cover. It did cross my mind but I talked myself out of it for economic reasons. I’ll save that version for the 50th anniversary issue. With the way the years are flying by and the speed I draw at, I’d better get started…!

They're the sites of the continental US's two biggest comics pop culture explosions. And neither one is nearly big enough.

They’re the sites of the continental US’s two biggest comics pop culture explosions. And neither one is nearly big enough.

¶ If Bruce Lidl’s fine piece on the revenue-raising scheme for the San Diego Convention Center expansion wasn’t enough for you, Voice of San Diego has the George Smiley version, with all the links, charts, reports, and conspiracy theories you could want.

One thing that occurs to us: it is a fact that trade show business is down around the country, and the internet has tamped down the need for giant all-in-one shows. A larger SD con center would benefit other huge shows that can’t fit there now, but it is Comic-Con that is driving the expansion. That’s still going to be a tough sell to locals, and we’d be surprised if all the legal challenges mentioned in the piece weren’t deployed at some point.

¶ MEANWHILE, over in New York, the Javits Center is DEFINITELY too small, situated as it is in land-poor Manhattan, yet it is one of the nations’s busiest facilities because…people like coming to New York! Thus Governor Andrew Cuomo’s wacky scheme to tear it down and put up a giant complex in Queens miles away from the Times Square Bubba Gump is being pointed out as the silly notion that it is.

More to the point, they add, Aqueduct is a 60-minute subway ride from Times Square. They fear that some conventions, trade shows and conferences will decide to go elsewhere. “The industry is skeptical about the viability of the Aqueduct site,” said Jeff Little, a 40-year trade show veteran. “It has the potential to be a big white elephant. It’s true that there are large shows that can’t go to the Javits, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll go to a large facility at Aqueduct.”

The proposed Queens facility (artist’s rendering above) would be the biggest in the nation, and would be payed for in its entirety by the Genting Group, a Malaysian gaming company that would in return, put in a giant casino and gambling complex attached to he Aqueduct Racetrack.

Call us nutty, but isn’t this the kind of thing that kept Philip Marlowe employed as he investigated the trail of murders left behind by the cover up? The Internet does save lives!

Our solution: If only there was a way to tear up every Chipotle Grill in Manhattan and combine their square footage, there would be plenty of room for the hugest con center of them all.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize judges have released their list of finalists for the 2011 prizes, and here are the five nominees for best graphic novel: I Will Bite You! And Other Stories, by Joseph Lambert (Secret Acres) Celluloid, by Dave McKean (Fantagraphics) Finder: Voice, by Carla Speed McNeil (Dark Horse) Congress of the [...]

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize judges have released their list of finalists for the 2011 prizes, and here are the five nominees for best graphic novel:

• I Will Bite You! And Other Stories, by Joseph Lambert (Secret Acres)
• Celluloid, by Dave McKean (Fantagraphics)
• Finder: Voice, by Carla Speed McNeil (Dark Horse)
• Congress of the Animals, by Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics)
• Garden, by Yuichi Yokoyama (PictureBox)

This is only the third year that there has been a graphic novel category, and it’s worth noting that this is the second time one of Jim Woodring’s books has been a finalist; last year it was Weathercraft. Also, while the selection is quite eclectic, five out of the 15 nominees in the past three years have been from Fantagraphics, which gives an inkling of the judges’ tastes.

Leah Moore and John Reppion are to write for the 2000AD stable for the first time, with the legendary artist D’Israeli, in the Judge Dredd Megazine short story section Tales From The Black Museum.Scouting For Bots, a play on the Baden Powell book, Their first work for 2000 AD, a Tales from the Black Museum...

Leah Moore and John Reppion are to write for the 2000AD stable for the first time, with the legendary artist D’Israeli, in the Judge Dredd Megazine short story section Tales From The Black Museum.Scouting For Bots, a play on the Baden Powell book,
Their first work for 2000 AD, a Tales from the Black Museum story entitled Scouting for Bots, will appear in Judge Dredd Megazine #322, on sale in the UK on 28th March and in North America on 11th April. Art on the nine-page tale has been supplied by another 2000 AD fan favourite – D’Israeli, otherwise known as artist Matt Brooker.

Leah Moore has fond memories of the company from a child. She is quoted as saying “We are really excited to be finally working for the comic we have all grown up with (some of us more than others!). I remember my dad taking me to the 2000 AD office when I was small (maybe eight?) and meeting Tharg in the flesh! I said “Borag Thungg, O Mighty One”. He said “Borag Thungg, Earthlet Leah”. It was awesome. It’s nice to see that bit of early networking paid off over two decades later.”

As I read links, I think about things. Here are some of those thoughts.

§ Faith Erin Hicks on comics that adapt books , and the technique thereof, with bonus link to her five page Hunger Games adaptation (above)

It seems like a stupid thing to say, but comics are a visual medium. They tell the story through pictures as much as they do words. Often when I pick up a comic adaptation of a prose novel, I am confronted by a huge wall of text, plastered all over the pages of the comic. The text is usually lifted straight from the prose novel. It seems that’s what people think a comic of a prose novel should be: an illustration with text slapped all over it. I think it’s awful. I hate adaptations like that. Comics are visual. If you are a cartoonist translating a novel to comics, it is your job to take the words the author has written, and draw them. It is your challenge to make those drawings as evocative and moving as the prose.

§ “This isn’t fun. This isn’t a game. This is very serious. Authorities have been contacted. Perhaps it is too late to stop this event, only time will tell.”
Is this a concerned citizen attempting to stop a gathering of terrorists? No, just a disgruntled loudmouth trying to stop the evil event known as Strange Adventures’s Ladies Night. Strange Adventures is an excellent comics shop located in Halifax, NS, and by all accounts its the kind of place we need a lot more of.

§ Nerdcore legend Adam WarRock is interviewed and gives his secret origins:

On the name Adam WarRock and its inspiration: One of my favorite comic-book stories of all time is The Infinity Gauntlet, a Marvel limited series from 1991. What I like about it is that Thanos, the main character, kills billions of beings just to impress a girl, who was the embodiment of death. However, she gives him no love. One of my favorite characters from that series was Adam Warlock. I was doing this blog called War Rocket Ajax with Chris Sims of the ComicsAlliance website, and he suggested the name Adam WarRock because of the blog name and the fact that I was a fan of Adam Warlock. I can’t stand the name, but I had to stick with it because I had some initial success with it. I think a lot of MCs are unhappy with their names.

§ In the future will millennials be known as The Sam and Max Generation?

A few months later, my English teacher pulled my Mom aside to talk about something I’d written. “He’s using these really large words for a kid his age” she said, like “‘Miasma’ and ‘Turgid’. What has he been reading?”. My Mom didn’t know, so she came home, asked me the same question. I told her that I’d seen them in a video game called Sam & Max Hit the Road. I told her that I’d written them down, looked them up and that I’d like to learn more words. So my Mom went to our local library, picked up a bunch of SAT vocabulary audio tapes and handed them off to me. I was in fourth grade.

§ The headline “Star Trek actor added to Falls Comic Con” referring to the regional Niagara Falls con made us thankful that there are enough Star Trek actors to go around to all these shows. In this case it’s Robert Piccardo who was on…one of those shows at some point.

§ This year’sToy Fair did not stir up the seething mass of disgruntlement that last year’s did, but it was severely lacking in shock and awe, says this veteran.

§ We all know what Alan Moore thinks about Before Watchmen, but what does the guy who played Ozymandias think????

§ When we saw this headline “Kotex Enlists Comics to Pitch Natural Balance Line” our pulse raced with anticipation that we’d hit the trifecta for awkward comic links that could be stored and shared whenever things were heating up. But, tragically, the “comics” refers to the stand-up kind. We’ll leave the feminine hygiene comics to Jen Vaughn.

§ Old time Beat readers will like this headline: “What Happened? Clive Owen”