We have a feature in the first issue of Arcana on comiXology and the work they’re doing bringing comics to the wonders of the iPhone. The number of TV shows comic adaptations on the handy device seems to be increasing too, with The Middle Man and Spartacus: Blood and Sand comics giving fans of the live action shows to follow their digital counterparts. There’s a short article here on the topic, even though they do describe X-Men as “animation influenced.” Oh well. At least comics are being promoted in various formats these days and it’s not just the sometimes intimidating/bewildering LCS as the only option for getting your mitts on some sequential art goodness.
Casper And The Spectrals #1
Ardden Entertainment made a good impression with their new Flash Gordon series and look set to use the same contemporary approach to another classic character – Casper. I know when the cover of the first issue was released a while back a few jaded fanboys rolled their eyes with this apparently desperate attempt to make the loveable ghost “down with the kids,” but really there are so few all-ages series on the shelves today, especially those in which parents, (or even grandparents in this case as Casper is turning 60!) can enjoy with their children. Newsarama seemed to enjoy the first issue and it is written by Ardden’s Brendan Deneen as well as great Spider-Man writers J.M DeMatteis and Todd Dezago, so is worth a look. Details below. The first issue is available this week.
Just in time for Casper the Friendly Ghost’s 60th anniversary, Ardden Entertainment proudly debuts Casper And The Spectrals, an all-new take on the world’s most famous ghost and his two friends, Wendy the Witch and Hot Stuff! There is a city within New York City known as Spooky Town, but most humans are unable to see it. Within this city live the Spectrals, the ghosts, goblins, demons and witches of the world. When an ancient entity known as the Volbragg threatens both New York and Spooky Town, Casper and his friends are forced to band together and defeat an unimaginable evil!
Story by JM DeMatteis & Brendan Deneen; Script by Todd DeZago; Art by Pedro Delgado; Color by Kieran Oats
Bryan Talbot Interview
Over at the always insightful Sci Fi Pulse (they cover not just comics, but films, TV, etc too) is a rather interesting interview with British creator Bryan Talbot. Talbot is the man behind the classic Luther Arkwright and recently released Grandville. The full interview can be heard, yes heard, next month at Blog Talk Radio, and while you’re there you may like to listen to the other interviews, with people such as Amanda Tapping from TV’s Sanctuary and Richard Emms from publisher Ardden (Flash Gordon, the new Casper and the Spectrals). For a teaser of the Talbot interview and more details visit Sci Fi Pulse.
Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4 Covers
Hitting stores on November 18 is the penultimate part of the pretty, and action packed Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer series. Details from Top Cow below.
TWO OPPOSING TEAMS MUST TRUST EACH OTHER TO SURVIVE
CYBERFORCE/HUNTER-KILLER #4
Top Cow Productions, Inc. proudly announced today the upcoming release of the penultimate installment of Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4 the first crossover between Top Cow’s Cyberforce and Hunter-Killer teams. Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4 is written by Mark Waid (Amazing Spider-Man, Strange), who co-created Hunter-Killer with Top Cow’s CEO and founder Marc Silvestri in 2005, with artwork by Kenneth Rocafort (Madame Mirage, Pilot Season: The Core), who drew the final four issues of the initial Hunter-Killer Season One series.
In Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4, both the Cyberforce and Hunter-Killer teams have discovered that Morningstar and Cyberdata are working towards a frightening global-spanning goal, but will the two teams be able to trust each other enough to survive the encounter against their true foes?
Silvestri created Cyberforce as the first comic book title to be produced by his newly-formed company in 1992. Hunter-Killer was created in 2005 by Silvestri and Waid. Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer picks up after Hunter-Killer: Season One wrapped up.
Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4 will arrive in stores on November 18th and features covers by Rocafort and Whilce Portacio (Image United).
Two cover variants will be offered for Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4, one by series artist Rocafort and another by Top Cow “Artist Pit” alumni Joe Benitez (Soulfire, Teen Titans). The fully colored Benitez cover is revealed for the first time now.
Cyberforce/Hunter-Killer #4 will retail for $2.99 as part of Top Cow’s own initiative to keep all of their regular comics priced at $2.99 for the duration of the 2009 calendar year.
Siege: What Price Victory?
Marvel’s newest epic is called Siege and revolves around Norman Osborn and his nefarious plans for Thor’s home of Asgard. They’ve been releasing teaser images for the last 2 weeks, and below is the latest, by Simone Bianchi with the relevant info (including the Final Order Cutoff and release dates for the mini-series). You can see the whole collection of teaser images over at Broken Frontier.
What Price Victory?
SIEGE: THE CABAL [Prologue to Siege] (OCT090467)
SIEGE: THE CABAL DAVIS VARIANT (SEP098227)
SIEGE: THE CABAL FINCH SKETCH VARIANT (SEP098228)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Penciled by MICHAEL LARK
Cover by DAVID FINCH
Variant Cover by ALAN DAVIS
Sketch Variant Cover by DAVID FINCH
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC—11/12/09, On-Sale—12/2/09
SIEGE #1 (of 4) (NOV090419)
SIEGE #1 (of 4) DELL’OTTO VARIANT (NOV090420)
SIEGE #1 (of 4) QUESADA VARIANT (NOV090421)
SIEGE #1 (of 4) COIPEL SKETCH VARIANT (NOV090422)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils & Cover by OLIVIER COIPEL
Variant Cover by GABRIELE DELL’OTTO
Variant Cover by JOE QUESADA
Sketch Variant by OLIVIER COIPEL
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC—12/10/09, On-Sale—1/6/10
Behind The Scenes
Thanks to the always informative Superman Homepage for sharing this fantastic new YouTube resource. FX guy Steve Johnson has worked on many major Hollywood films over the last 30 years and now that he’s no longer in the biz, he wants to get all his archival footage out there. Steve’s introductory video shows some of what we can expect, such as concept work, deleted scenes and more from films such as Spider-Man 2, Fantastic Four and the so-glad-it-was-never-made Tim Burton Superman film from the mid 1990s. Check it out below.
Work In Comics Site
I meant to mention this a while ago, but here it is now. Below is the press release for the new Work In Comics website. It’s a great idea to get similarly minded comics fans together on creative collaborations. The people behind the wonderful Septagon Studios are behind it, who we featured in Extra Sequential. Check out all the details below.
Work In Comics is a job and collaboration platform which is designed specifically for the needs of putting together comics. Users looking for work or looking to hire will be able to come to Work In Comics to find potential prospects. Why go surfing all over the net when you can come to one place and find what you’re looking for?
The site is designed to gather comic book creators in all areas of comic development to help fulfill their needs of various comic services. Work In Comics is built upon the experiences of many independent creators, and how their careers in the comics industry could have used one or two fewer challenges; this platform will serve as an aid for those creators. Work In Comics provides an all-in-one platform to help aspiring creators build their comic team.
The website also offers various services such as a Creator Announcement section where creators are free to post upcoming events, convention appearances, or project launches, a Work In Comics blog where users will be able to get the latest tips and advice on how to get involved in the comics industry, and more. Best of all, Work In Comics is a FREE service.
Many more great features will be added shortly; we encourage our users to read the various guidelines and help topics in order to get started in creating their first post. We also encourage our users to provide feedback and suggestions through our “give feedback” feature on the Work In Comics blog, so as to help improve the site.
Some Features of Work In Comics include:
• Targeted Job Postings
• Multiple Search Options
• Upload Your Resume and demo reels
• Subscriptions and RSS features.
• Post Your Announcement
• It’s ALL FREE!
About Work In Comics:
http://www.workincomics.com
Our goal at Work In Comics is to help you find fellow creators in all areas of comic development. It is a place where people looking for work in comics can find opportunities, or create their own. We have great tools and resources available to help get you started on your way to building your comic team and getting your comic project realized.
• Find a Writer
• Choose an Artist
• Search for opportunities
• Build your comic team
Work In Comics
Opportunities. Resources. Collaboration.
Work In Comics Video demo and FAQ
http://workincomicsblog.septagonstudios.com/?p=69
http://workincomics.septagonstudios.com/faq
Work In Comics Blog and Tutorials at:
http://workincomicsblog.septagonstudios.com
Work In Comics founded in 2009, a division of Septagon Studios, Inc.
Digested From Gestalt
Now available from Gestalt Publishing are the first two issues of creator Bobby N’s Digested series. Bobby’s work was the highlight for me (and many others) in Gestalt’s recent Flinch anthology, so to see the writer/artist be the focus of these slice of life pages is sure to be a treat. More details and preview pages can be seen at Gestalt’s site.
Modern Masters For $10
Those delightful folks at TwoMorrows give the gerky portion of the world some pretty good products, with their books and magazines mainly focused on comics of the 1970s and 80s. They currently have a sale on (until the end of November) where you can get their entire back catalogue of Modern Master books for only $10. Each book is over 100 pages and primarily black and white and centres on a particular talented artist, with interviews, art and such. Artists covered include George Perez, Bruce Timm, Alan Davis and more. See them all here.
Arcana Mag Press Release
The press release for the mag was sent off yesterday. Now, it’s really official! Here it is.
Arcana Launches Comics & Pop Culture Magazine
VANCOUVER (November 5, 2009) – Arcana Studios, an award winning comic book publisher and transmedia producer, is proud to announce the launch of Arcana Magazine. Debuting on January 27th 2010, and solicited in the current November Previews (Diamond Code: NOV09 0599) is the new quarterly magazine simply entitled Arcana, the re-designed print version of the on-line comics based magazine Extra Sequential.
Extra Sequential was the brainchild of Kris Bather and Dave Lapsley in Perth, Western Austrailia – two men who were looking for creative opportunities outside of their day jobs at a large architectural design firm. From January to June of this year 3 issues of Extra Sequential were published, containing interviews with an array of creative professionals, such as Joe Jusko, Zeb Wells, Tom DeFalco, and Brian Cronin. Topics covered included Street Fighter, Flash Gordon, the new Hulk and so much more, with an eye on both mainstream and rising indie stars.
After reaching over 16,000 subscribers on Scribd.com and becoming a Featured Magazine on Issuu.com, Extra Sequential was picked up by Arcana Comics for the transition to print, with Bather and Lapsley continuing their unique comics focus in the new print format.
Bather is the former Comics Department Head of now defunct website Infuze and current contributor to popular website Broken Frontier. Lapsley is new to the world of comics but brings a keen sense of design and shares Bather’s desire to let the world know how cool comics truly are.
“The thing that has always seemed odd to me is that comics continually reveal diverse art from some of the world’s greatest artists, but few people outside of the local comic book shop will ever know that,” says Bather. “Sure, a multitude of people are more familiar with Spider-Man and Batman thanks to Hollywood, but that seems to rarely translate to an increase in regular readership of comics. We hope Arcana can be somewhat of a bridge for those readers as well as show something new to longtime lovers of sequential art.”
Inspired more by the surf and skate magazines than the usual pop culture assortment on the shelves, Arcana aims to let the art speak for itself while also making sure every page is an artistic display. With bold layouts incorporating unique design and photography Arcana aims to be more than a throwaway item, but an attractive glimpse into the cutting edge of comic books and the people behind them.
Bather states, “We chose the landscape format straight out of the gate because we want people to know that we’re different upon first glance. We realise it’s perhaps a risky choice, but that’s exactly what comics are too. We want to conjure curiousity in comics newbies, but there’s enough content in Arcana for the veteran reader too.”
The first issue of Arcana features interviews with Star Wars: Invasion writer Tom Taylor, artist Josh Medors, Singaporean writer Edmund Shern, Surrogates creator Robert Venditti, and ground breaking artist David Mack. Also included are previews from upcoming comics and features such as a look back at The Death of Superman event, a talk with pro cyclist/comics fan Dave Zabriskie, a brief chat with the legendary Marv Wolfman, and an article on the current love affair between musicians and comics, including an interview with Coheed & Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez. There’s also a look at just how to market comics today, a breakdown of popular comic book terms and more.
Arcana #1, a 96 page full color magazine goes on sale January 27th, 2010.
About Arcana Studios:
Arcana Comics has published over 150 original comics and books and is a division of Arcana, an award winning transmedia company founded by CEO Sean O’Reilly. Arcana establishes new brands and intellectual properties with engaging storytelling and compelling visuals through comic books, graphic novels, animation, short-form live-action, video games, toys and now, feature length films. Arcana has created original brands they control such as The Clockwork Girl and Kade, and have further developed existing brands for Disney, Sony, Capcom, HBO and more. In addition, several of Arcana’ s other properties are in development or pre-production such as GEARHEAD with Valhalla Motion Pictures and a mixed martial arts movie through Grindstone Entertainment.
For interview requests about Arcana Magazine, please e-mail Kris Bather at kris@arcanaquarterly.com
www.arcanaquarterly.com
Trondheim’s Little Nothings
Lewis Trondheim is one of those indie creators who I’ve been aware of for some time, but have never actually read any of his stuff. Now, publishers NBM are releasing a collection of his daily musings, of which you can see more of at NBM’s blog. I liked James Kochalka’s American Elf with its anthropomorphic slice of life stories and this looks to be similarly entertaining. All the details below. Oh, and NBM still have their great $4 sale on too!
LITTLE NOTHINGS
Vol. 3: “Uneasy Happiness”
Lewis TRONDHEIM
Trondheim’s comics blog’s next collection of his popular musings on the every day ironies of life, his little anxieties, funny observations while on travel, his way of finding some cloud over the brightest sunshine, his obsessive hypochondria and other oh-so-easy-to-relate-to nerdy preoccupations. As he says himself, it’s whole lotta not much. And people are lovin’ it:
“Fans of James Kochalka’s American Elf will find he has an international soulmate in Lewis Trondheim.” -The Onion
“If this isn’t the best thing that NBM has ever published in its 30 years of making graphic albums available to the English-language market, it’s one of the top three.”
-Tom Spurgeon, Comics Reporter.
6×9, 128pp., full color trade pb with flaps, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-56163-576-4
Fall Of The Hulks Preview
Hulk is fast becoming the Batman of the Marvel Universe, with more superheroes running around associated with Bruce Banner’s alter ego than any one series can contain. Marvel’s next Hulk-focused epic, after Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, is Fall of the Hulks. It begins with Fall of the Hulks: Alpha which lands on December 30 and is written by Jeff Parker with pencils by Paul Pelletier. Ed McGuiness and David Finch provide covers. Preview pages below.
