Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thad]

Simone has assembled a truly eye-popping who's-who of female comics writers for Red Sonja's 40th anniversary

Via the press release:

Marjorie M. Liu, Mercedes Lackey, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Rhianna Pratchett, Leah Moore, Tamora Pierce, Blair Butler, Nancy Collins, Meljean Brook, Nicola Scott, Devin Grayson and more to be announced.

Rich Johnston snipes, "And for those publishers wondering about their own female creative line up, isn’t it embarrassing that just one title will have more female writers than every book you’ve published this year so far?"

Simone herself responds, "Ooooh burn!!  Gotta admit, it is a fair question!"

[Thad]

I managed to snag the last copy of Red Sonja #1 from my LCS.

Worth it!

[Thad]

News out of Comic-Con I'm most interested in so far:

New Bone from Jeff Smith.
Mark and Sergio are doing a history of Mad.
And also Groo vs. Conan is coming along.
And also also Stan Sakai is doing an adaptation of War of the Worlds set in feudal Japan.

[Mongrel]

New Bone from Jeff Smith.

Huhwhat?!

Mark and Sergio are doing a history of Mad.

OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooohhh

[Thad]

New Bone from Jeff Smith.

Huhwhat?!

Didn't link because there's really no other information beyond that, but that's what Bleeding Cool is saying, at least.

And here's the Mark and Sergio post.

Just teases so far and no real information to speak of.  But I'm a lot more excited about this stuff than anything else I've heard.

Though I'm still hoping for a Batman '66 DVD announcement.

[Mongrel]

That reminds me of how I was collecting RASL as one of the very last monthly comics I was picking up (I was down to like that, Conan, and one other book). My getting fired from the job I had at the time put the last nail in my buying comics* so I never actually picked up the last issues (I was up to like issue 6 or 7?). I had completely forgotten about that book. I guess I should finish that off at some point.

_{*I finally started again, though only in the smallest way. Maybe a half-dozen trades in the last year.}

[Thad]

I'm kinda curious what it would be like to read Rasl in one sitting.  It sure was a pretty book, but it was one of those that came out so seldom that I'd forgotten the previous issue by the time I picked up the new one and it was pretty hard to give a fuck.  And fetishizing Tesla is so passe.

I gripe, but a mediocre Jeff Smith book is still better than damn near anything else you're likely to see.

Anyway, the bad news is Evanier says he and Aragones are not actually doing a book about the history of Mad.  Serves me right for linking unsourced rumors from Bleeding Cool. 

Still looking forward to Groo vs. Conan, though.

[Thad]

So here's an actually-sourced announcement from Bleeding Cool, then: Walter Simonson is doing a new series based in Norse mythology.

So we are getting new Thor from Simonson.  Not Marvel's Thor, but the way I see it this is even better.

[Thad]

Then a lovely young lady got up and thanked me for including Alysia in Batgirl and she got a big hand from this hardcore DC comics crowd.

[...]

This makes me happy. This thing that would have been super controversial a few years ago, to the point where it seemed like it might never happen, was met not with scorn for the most part, but with a positive reaction. People like Alysia, we get constant requests for MORE of her story in the book.

This makes me happy because there is so much bad news out there, and the notion that a trans character would be embraced by the comics community, well, that’s very nice.  It makes me happy because when I was growing up, in a small, very white town, the first interracial marriage I ever saw was in a comic. The first out gay hero character I ever saw was in a comic. If we’re telling stories about heroes, inclusion follows naturally, or we’re doing it wrong.

It's easy to think of the loud assholes as representative.  It's nice to be told that they're not. 

I like to think the decent folks outnumber the rotten ones.  In fandom and outside of it.

[Thad]

I think I liked Quantum and Woody #2 better than #1.  It feels more like Asmus and Fowler are starting to make the book their own.

Yes, there's a framing device that leads into a flashback with a white-text-black-background title.  But I'm pretty sure it only happens once this time.

The art's better, too.  Fowler's faces are a little weird and distorted -- in a way I like, that reminds me of Jim Lawson or Jeff Lemire.

For all that it seems fresher than last issue, it's got its nods to the original series too -- Quantum appears in his original MD Bright costume (in the now traditional "superhero appears in a different costume for his first outing" bit), Magnum gets a namedrop, and -- was there a Created By credit in #1?  Because there is in this one.  Not only that, but there's a Comixology ad that prominently features issue #1 of the new series and almost-as-prominently features #1 of the original series.  And again, while I don't know for certain that Priest and Bright are getting royalties for the old books on Comixology, I've seen unnamed sources quoted as saying that, and I think it's the likeliest explanation for Bright saying things are amicable with Valiant and Maguire declaring that he's cool with the company too now.

So -- again, with the heavy disclaimer that I don't know FOR SURE that Priest and Bright are profiting from the original series -- there's a prominent ad for it in this book and I THINK that's an ad for something that sends money their way.

(Well, I mean, technically #1 is free.  But you know what I mean.)

Anyway, that's rather a long tangent.  Point is, I like the book, and I think it's both starting to find its new voice AND do a better job of acknowledging its origins.

[Büge]

http://comicsalliance.com/stardust-toy-fletcher-hanks-fantomah/

Oh man, he's even got the messed-up proportions.

[Mothra]

Punk Diana

[Bal]

Zatanna as Slash? Yes.

[Büge]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/08/23/dc_comics_to_launch_justice_league_canada_in_2014.html

[Mongrel]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/08/23/dc_comics_to_launch_justice_league_canada_in_2014.html

PFFFLOL

EDIT: It'd be funny if the reason they move the Justice League to Canada is to escape tyrannical US spying. 

[Büge]

Happy Birthday to The King.

[Bongo Bill]

Happy Birthday to The King.

Tom Scioli reposted a comic he drew about Jack Kirby in honor of the occasion.

[Thad]

I wrote a bit of a ramble where I covered both Kirby's birthday and the anniversary of the March on Washington, by way of tying them together through John Lewis's new comic and the 1950's-era MLK comic that he's discussed reading as a teenager.  Funnybooks can be serious business.

It also seemed appropriate to work in a bit about the Black Panther and how Marvel censored Kirby's design and covered up his jaw.  I suppose you could give them the benefit of the doubt and say Jack's version looked too much like Batman, but...nah, I think concealing his skin tone was deliberate.  Marvel was always on the progressive side -- but it was that cautious, commercially-viable form of progressivism.

[Büge]

The Batwoman writers are done.

Unfortunately, in recent months, DC has asked us to alter or completely discard many long-standing storylines in ways that we feel compromise the character and the series. We were told to ditch plans for Killer Croc’s origins; forced to drastically alter the original ending of our current arc, which would have defined Batwoman’s heroic future in bold new ways; and, most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate and Maggie actually getting married. All of these editorial decisions came at the last minute, and always after a year or more of planning and plotting on our end.

sigh

[Thad]

Huh.

You know how I've been saying for months that by the end of the year I might not be reading a single Bat-book but oh wait that's right there's always Batwoman?