I kind of dig the whole ‘DC Retroactive‘ project

the revealed teams are:

Superman – Martin Pasko (‘70s), Marv Wolfman (‘80s), Louise Simonson (‘90s)

Batman – Len Wein (‘70s), Mike Barr (‘80s), Alan Grant (‘90s)

Wonder Woman – Denny O’Neil (‘70s), Roy Thomas (‘80s), William Messner-Loebs (‘90s)

Flash – Carey Bates (‘70s), William Messner Loebs (‘80s), Brian Augustyn (‘90s)

Green Lantern – Denny O’Neil (‘70s), Len Wein (‘80s), Ron Marz (‘90s)

The Justice League of America – Cary Bates (‘70s), Gerry Conway (‘80s), Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis (‘90s)

It reminds me of the amazing Batman series ‘Turning points’ that explored the turning points of the relationship between Batman and Commissioner James Gordon. Written by Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, and Chuck Dixon, with art by Steve Lieber, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Brent Anderson, Paul Pope, and Claude St. Aubin.

Each chapter was drawn in the particular style of that time period: Lieber does his best Mazzucchelli impression to give us a Year One tale. Giordano returns to give us the zany-large-set-pieces of 1960s Batman to introduce Robin to Gordon Brent Anderson gives us a Knightfall tale and Paul Pope bats clean up with a then-current post-no man’s land tale.

Obviously from the CBR column it seems like all the creative teams are having a pretty fun time getting to play with the toys again. I’ve been burned before by some creators coming back to characters that they once made their name on (Frank Miller on ASBATS, Neal Adams on Batman: Odyssey) but I’m hoping that this will be a fun little divergent project.

Warren Ellis and Marvel’s Secret Avengers sound like a really good fit. I was ready to jump off the title with Brubaker, as I haven’t really read anything by Nick Spencer that really blew me away, but Ellis’ conceit of doing done-in-one Global Frequency inspired style black-op stories has completely sold me. As much as I want Ellis to work on creator owned projects I’ll gladly take support him while he’s painting other people’s houses; especially when he’s got Jamie McKelvie handling the brushes.

When Secret Avengers launched it seemed like the most interesting of all the Avengers titles. While its first arc was a bit rocky, Brubaker worked his single issue magic by spotlighting Nick Fury’s sentient LMD “Max Fury.” I haven’t read the Fu Manchu storyline, but I have high hopes. Brubaker’s never really been that’ great at team books, which is odd considering most of his comic book work involves a large cast of characters (see: Daredevil, Captain America, Incognito) While I look forward to his new Captain America series, as well as the just-announced Captain America & Bucky, I’m curious to what he’ll work on next.

FROM THE DOES ANYONE KNOW? DEPARTMENT

What is David Aja working on right now? I will buy each and everything that he works on, and lately that’s largely been cover work. He has the ability to be one of the defining artists of his generation and I despair when I open up Previews each month and don’t see his name anywhere.

New Artist I really like!

Zac Gorman came up randomly for me on my Tumblr and I immediately went and checked out everything I could. Here’s some of my faves. Check out more at his website zacgorman.com.

Very cool stuff.

Okay, that’s it for me. I’ve been burning my way through Koike & Kojima’s Samurai Executioner for the past few days and am looking for a good suggestion on where to go next. Let me know in the comments below!

Currently re-reading: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, American Flagg! and Stumptown.

_________________________________________________________________________

About a year ago my boss lent me the manga series Bakune Young. I don’t know if you’re particularly familiar with the series as it came out of Viz’ PULP magazine which ran from 1997 to 2002. I’d never heard of it previously but it’s creator Toyokazu Matsunaga is an amazing talent. Everything is completely over the top in an absolutely wonderful way. It flows with kinetic energy; turning the pages is a gleeful process to see how he’s going to top the preceding page.

Bakune Young’s plot doesn’t really matter, it’s an excuse to toss as many cool and innovative designs at us. The level of ultra-violence is so graphic that it’s hard to really take seriously. Check out this sequence with the french ninja (wearing a hoodie with ninja written on it) taking out a yakuza heavy with a simple pen-to-the-back-of-the-head:

The use of sound effects in this book rival Naoki Urusawa’s – a man who placement and literal translations offering one of the most engrossing reading experiences this side of Paul Pope.

Hey look at this: Farel Dalrymple draws Mister Miracle.

Dalrymple is one of those wonderful artists that always seems like he’s about to break out to more commercial success. He draws the best, most vibrant cities injecting them as a character in their own right just as much as Will Eisner ever did.

If you haven’t had a chance to see his and Jonathan Lethem’s re-imagining of Steve Gerber’s Omega the Unknown – I’d strongly suggest checking it out. A wonderful fever dream of a comic that showcases Dalrymple’s strengths as a storyteller. Highly recommended.

Congrats to Ramon Perez: dude is in for a hell of a year. In case you were too captivated by our Wizard World Toronto coverage to check other sites for news from C2E2, you may have missed the big Archaia announcement. Looks like they’ve adapted A Tale of Sand, a ‘lost’ Jim Henson story, into a graphic novel with beautiful Ramon Perez art.

“It is always a daunting task when working on something where you hold the creator in such high regard. Growing up, Jim Henson’s visions were an inspiration to my hungry imagination, and it is now an honor to be able to bring one of his unproduced manuscripts into the graphic novel medium.

Jim’s script is so visually meticulous that it is a joy to conceptualize his words onto the page. The first time I sat down to read A TALE OF SAND it was akin to watching a movie in the theatre of my minds eye. The true challenge for me is translating Jim’s visual language and storytelling sensibilities from film onto paper.”

-Ramón Pérez

This on top of the fact that he recently finished a few books for Marvel, has the graphic novel The Green River Killer (based on true events) coming out through Dark Horse and well, it looks like this is his year.

Hell, pretty much all of the Transmission X crew seem to be rolling in prestige, critical acclaim and I can only guess fly hats and mink coats. Andy Belanger is DESTROYING it on Kill Shakespeare (Ardizzi took me to class explaining Belanger’s layouts being some next level sh*t that, quite frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t notice them earlier.. usually a good sign of storytelling.)

Pretty good time to be a comic book fan in Toronto.

For those of you unaware of my undying love of Brian McLachlan, I thought I’d give you an update. Over at his blog he posted some movie posters he found while on a trip to a parallel earth. Obviously I’d say take a look at all of them, but here are the ones that I’m going to go on a hunger strike until they are made.

Any movie that features both Warwick Davis & Sticky Fingaz needs to be made.

Okay, confession time: as big as a Paul Pope fan I am I have not read THB. I’ve had the rare opportunity to pick up issues here and there, but I’ve always wanted to wait until it’s collected to really get into it. Last year, when I got to meet Mr. Pope at TCAF, he mentioned that he was hoping that the collected edition would be out within a year or so. So far no sign of that or Battling Boy. That’s why a large part of me seriously hates Forbidden Planet. Why do they post excerpts from THB? All it does is make me realize what I’ve been missing out on.

Seriously, take a look at this amazing page from Motor Race – an homage to the great Guido Carpax:

Stunning stuff. So what do you guys think? Should I just cave and try to track down some of the back issues? Let me know in the comments below. Especially if you’ve read it – let me know what I can expect.

Hey Adult Swim! Let’s make Derek Charm’s Hanna Barbara inspired Seven Soldier’s happen.

Look at the adorable expression on Frankenstein! Those Sheeda will never stand a chance!

I tend to write off Adam Hughes as a cheesecake artist. I believe this is because I wasn’t into comics when he was doing interiors and he’s mostly known for drawing the curviest covers for the curviest women. I also sort of resent that he popularized the whole ‘Catwoman ALWAYS unzips her costume to show off her cleavage’ which sort of misses the point completely when it comes to the current incarnation of her character.

That said though, the greatest thing Hughes ever did was basing his Selina on Audrey Hepburn. Sure it looks completely anatomically incorrect that Hepburn would be rocking Double Ds, but that doesn’t stop Hughes from having some of the greatest facial expressions on covers.

Not sure who compiled it but I found it via Suicide Blonde. There’s a lot of fun expressions on those covers. I think that if he built Selina more like Ms. Hepburn (she’d look like this) it would actually make more sense for a character that is supposed to be lithe and agile. Catwoman was one of DC’s best books. From Brubaker’s run to Pfeifer’s. It was written well, didn’t rely on any of the quasi-sexist crap that was standard throughout the Balent era that came before it. Did it have a large female following?(If you know tell me in the comments please!)

Hey Dan Hipp,

If you make it, I’ll buy it. Anything you do, I’ll buy.

So, I’ve asked a whole bunch of questions today. I’m very quizzical. I’ll leave you with one other question: Who is one talent that CBD has thus far ignored completely? Let me know in the comments below!

]]> http://www.comicbookdaily.com/columns/suddenlymaybe-im-full-of-questions-2/feed/ 0 http://www.comicbookdaily.com/columns/cbds-52q-16-what-do-you-want-in-your-stocking-this-year-2/ http://www.comicbookdaily.com/columns/cbds-52q-16-what-do-you-want-in-your-stocking-this-year-2/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:31:53 +0000 Comic Book Daily Staff http://www.comicbookdaily.com/?p=11336 Every week CBD’s Editor in Chief Pete DeCourcy asks the question and the crew (and special guests) give their answers, we’ll be doing this for 52 weeks. Tip of the hat goes to the gang at Scans_Daily for the inspiration.

Today’s Question: “What do you want in your stocking this year?”

Scott VanderPloeg (writer of CBD’s Bound Together column; his ramblings can be found blogged at eBabble.)

I’m hoping for Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition two book slip-cased wonder to be released before Christmas so I can have some quality reading over the holidays.

Chris Owen (Professor of Comic Books History at Hamilton’s Mohawk College and host of The Comic Culture Radio Show.)

I’m hoping for a gift certificate for EB games for when the DC Universe Online comes out next year! I can pretty well say goodbye to any life I had previously.

Anthony Falcone (Writer of Whosoever Holds This Hammer)

I agree with Scott on the Usagi Yojimbo SE (which means that he and I will be the only 2 people to own it), but I am also pretty stoked for the Thor Omnibus. Oh wait, Marvel pushed the date back to January 19th. If this be Ragnarok indeed.

Wade Mckee (Loud Mouthed Comic Store Employee, Booster Gold’s Number One Fan)

I would like a copy of Flash Crossfire and Flash Blitz both in trade paperback so I can complete my collection…oh and socks, it’s never Christmas without socks. Oh and maybe this…so that for once the Joker will not get away!

Chris Howard (From Egesta Comics, one of the masterminds behind the fan favourite webcomic series Dressed For Success)

I’ve held off buying Scott Chantler’s Two Generals as I mentioned it as a gift option to my family. If they don’t come through, then it’s a Boxing Day buy.

Greg Hyland (Writer/illustrator of the cult classic Lethargic Lad as well as Lego Star Wars)

“The power to decide who lives and who dies.”

-Crow T. Robot

The only thing I want this year is that Paul Pope will give us a solid release date on both Battling Boy and the complete THB. They were both announced two years ago and we still haven’t seen them. I’d also like to have both Scott and Tony shut up about the Usagi Yojimbo HC …

cause god knows I wasn’t sold on it, ’til I had these two talking about it.

I recently joined an amazing Tumblr called the Airtight Garage (and/or quenched consciousness) which turned me onto this image by Monsieur Giraud

Inspired by one of his more controversial images, artists like Paul Pope, Brandon Graham, Corey Lewis and D-pi are giving their unique take. I’ll present them in that order.

Pope’s take is very straight-forward and very much in keeping with the original erotic tone of Moebius’ original. He even presents this quote “A drawing can never be pornography. A drawing is an visual description of an idea and not a documented depiction of an actual event.”

Meanwhile the mad man of comic Brandon Graham inflects some of his offbeat influences – namely Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama (and some Eastman & Laird). He doesn’t age the girl either, but does cover her up. Graham has done some pretty awesome erotic comics – namely the hilariously smutty Pillowfight. (Shout out to Marc Sims of Big B Comics for the recommendation!)

Corey Lewis meanwhile ups the ante by aging the girl and making her.. Lady Gaga?  Lewis’ style is well suited for this sort of pop art homage, and thus far his ‘version’ is my favourite, mostly because it’s so brash and Warholian that you can’t help but kind of adore it. He adds: “Ya I went a bit OUT on mine. Whatevvvz. Yeah, I drew Lady Gaga (or for DONJINSHI purposes– my interpretations of her are known as “LADY XAXA”). I variated my version of the nipple tweak, too. Mine’s more of a PINCH! OO“

Finally we come to D-pi – an artist I’ll confess to not be as familiar with. Which is something I’m going to immediately correct by checking out all the entries of his webcomic Gratuitous Ninja. He himself says of his piece: “I’ve replaced the pubescent girl with the sexually frustrated Hachimaru from GratNin. Her posture is a little different than the original… and it’s not the only unintentional glaring difference…  Next time, I’ll do a straight study. Moebius is a BEASTTT!“

Pope wrote:

He went on to write:

Which is what I’d want. I love Kirby because he gave me stories I’d never read before. That’s how I feel about Paul Pope. He’s promised that Battling Boy is going to have 40 page fight scenes.

40 PAGE FIGHT SCENES!

Think about that.

I love Azz as well, but i’d rather see him get to work on creator owned stuff as well. His voice is too unique to be wasted on capes.

Here’s the other concept work that Pope posted:

Pure dopeness.

Panel from Legend of the Green Flame

It’s nice to be able to pick up a single comic and then set it down again, completely satisfied. Neil Gaiman has written a great one shot in Green Lantern/Superman Legend of the Green Flame. Scripted during his early days at DC, Neil wrote a great kind of love letter to the pre-Crisis Green Lantern and Superman. Unfortunately then the Man of Steel retcon occurred and the story was shelved until 2000. The great thing about it is it’s still a good story but you really don’t need to know anything about pre-Crisis Superman or Green Lantern other then the basics.

In terms of anthologies, Batman Black and White is kind of the gold standard at this point and my favorite story was the Two of A Kind by Bruce Timm. It was a Two Face story done in Timm’s distinctive style but with all the rules of TV taken off. It was a good little noir Two Face piece that pretty much sums up the character for me.

(Ed. Note: You can watch the motion comic of Two of a Kind below, thanks to DC’s motion comic adaptations of some of the best Batman Black and White stories)

World's Funnest!

Which reminds me, World’s Funnest written by Evan Dorkin is also a great read. Bat Mite vs Mr. Mxyzptlk in a battle the goes across universes and art styles. I love how DC got guys like Frank Miller and Alex Ross to do art on the ridiculousness that was this story.

I’m also a big fan of Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw On Head. While I would love to read more of his adventures, they aren’t nessecary. Although it is a multiple swear word shame that nothing ever came of the television pilot. It looked so much like Mignola’s art.

paul pope's award winning issue of Solo

Now the hard part also seems to be the easy part in creating a one shot. If you only have 8 to 22 pages to tell your story, there’s a lot you have to leave out. Essentially you boil down the character and the story to it’s essence. This should also be a good lesson to those wishing to make films based on these characters. You don’t need to do a whole two hours of back story. We know who Superman is at this point.

Unfortunately, we don’t get too many one shots that are true one shots. Marvel has started to with their giant sized one shot books here and there so maybe there’s hope yet. I would love to see DC’s SOLO (an awesome anthology comic where each issue was a single artist doing multiple short stories) series start again but that’s wishful thinking.

Brent Chittenden is a Canadian freelance writer who also happens to write humorous things for Bite TV’s blog. If you have need of his services you can reach him at bcchittenden@gmail.com, twitter at @BCNerdhole and his podcast Two Assholes Talking About Nerd Stuff. Feel free to become a fan of him at his Facebook group Brent Chittenden: The Writer.

I’ll be honest with you; I hate conventions.

Maybe it’s because I’m usually working them and that in and of itself is usually an ordeal. Maybe it’s because there are throngs of people all trying to go in the same direction in usually poorly laid out aisles.

TCAF is totally different.

Maybe because it was my first ‘comic convention’ that it coloured my personal dislike of the convention scene, but TCAF is my favourite comic event of the year.

There’s something totally different about the feel of TCAF. There’s a wonderful sense of camaraderie and excitement in the air.

Everyone who is there is there because they believe in comic books as a medium.

There’s lots of people that I got to talk to and those interviews are going to be up within the next few days. But here’s some little tidbits that I learned and observed at TCAF 2010.

• Cameron Stewart is working on a top secret project with Karl Kerschl – no details yet.. but tell me that that book won’t be absolutely beautiful.
• Jaime McKelvie is currently working on book two of his ‘Suburban Glamour’ series. This is great news for guys who love fairies and beautiful girls.
• Matt Loux is awesome. There I said it. Dude is seriously the coolest person I met at the con – cannot wait for more Salt Water Taffy.
• I never got to talk to him but Charles Vess was everywhere, I think he had a coffee at all times.
• Paul Pope signs his name backwards. He told us that he studied caligraphy during his tenure in Japan and that he sees letters as shapes. He then had to rush off to Kinkos to send off some work to Marvel.
• If you haven’t had a chance to check out any work by Marc Ellerby or Adam Caldwell I highly recommend it. Ellerby is known for Love the way you love and his webcomic Ellebisms – but he’s got a comic called Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter that totally blew me away. Probably my favourite thing I picked up at TCAF. Meanwhile Adam Caldwell – famed for his longrunning webcomic The Everyday – had copies of his new series Blood Blokes, a great coming of age book that involves Vampires. If the opening Hernandez-esque pages are any indication this is going to be something really, really special. I cannot wait to read more.
• and finally if you’re looking for a great webcomic, please check out Kayla Marie Hillier’s To Galavant a wonderful auto-biographical comic based on her 3 month excursion through the United Kingdom, well worth your time.

I’ll probably be updated more and more as more memories come back to me, but the truth is I had such a great time at TCAF and I really hope everyone who participated will send Chris Butcher and the crew at the Beguiling a big thank you for putting on such a wonderful event.

Pete DeCourcy is EiC of ComicBookDaily.com. He tumbls over at You Practically Rock and writes for The Simple Art of Crime. If you have any questions or demands of him, he can be reached via email at pdecourcy[at]comicbookdaily[dot]com

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6 (Oni Press)

Written and Drawn by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Over the course of five volumes O’Malley has managed to tell the story of Scott Pilgrim – the best fighter in the province – and his quest to date Ramona Flowers, the girl of his dreams by defeating her seven evil ex-boyfriends. Volume #5 is the best written, most confidently executed installment of the series yet, and this is one of those things that is written about each volume as it comes out.

The fact is, it’s not only an amazing comic book, it’s just a great story. Characters live and interact as real as you and your friends do – take away all the anime nods, the nintendo boss fights and it’s saturation and debt to nerd culture and you’re looking at a simple story about a guy getting his life together and growing up. Scott is – at first – completely likeable and intriguing – but as the books progress, we realize that Scott may be the main character, he’s not the hero, no one is. They’re all just people living and trying to figure out who they are.

Battling Boy (First Second)

Written and Drawn by Paul Pope

When I was putting together this list last year I put Battling Boy down as the book I was most looking forward to. I remember seeing the pictures that Paul Pope was putting on his blog and I was totally blown away. This was Paul Pope at his most raw and unleashed. Bringing the Kirby influence to the lessons he learned toiling away at the Kodansha Manga Studios creating an epic fight scenes that will possibly bring a new language to how we view how fight scenes could be read and laid out.

“In Batman Year 100, I had room for a couple of long fight sequences, but I felt cramped even with 200 pages. This fight scene from BATTLING BOY alone is about 50 pages. It’s liberating to have no page restrictions. I wish Kirby could’ve had 50 pages for one fight scene, imagine what he would’ve done.

The extended cinematic sequence is one of the best gifts we’ve inherited from manga. ”

Pope himself describes the series as such: “Battling Boy is aimed at kids and it’s coming out from First Second in 2007. It’s a kind of a fairytale kid Beowulf, or a Peter Pan with teeth. It’s set in a mythical city called Monstropolis, a city the size of a continent that’s overrun with monsters.”

Well, unfortunately it didn’t come out in 2009. But that’s fine – I mean, we got plenty of good reads – like the runner up on the list Asterios Polyp and Parker: The Hunter. But I cannot wait to see just what happens when this book finally drops and the influence it will have on future works.

Nemesis (Marvel)

Written by Mark Millar

Drawn by Steve McNiven

What is Joker had all the resources of Batman? What if Batman was the Joker?

The storyline doesn’t matter – it’s a set piece book. It’s Mark Millar writing insane scenes of hyper violence and operatic super-villainy for McNiven to draw in brilliant, beautiful detail. Millar is only as good as his artist and with McNiven he’s found a wonderful partner for these sorts of high-concept, low thought process stories. Say what you will about Old Man Logan – there’s one thing people agree on, it’s beautiful. McNiven isn’t a fast artist, and that’s fine – we don’t want him on a monthly any way, we want him doing what he does to the best of his ability, don’t expect an issue a month, just be greatful to get it when we get it.

Nemesis is an excuse for Millar’s faith in McNiven’s imagination and skill to take off and go to darker and more widescreen places, and that’s what we’re going to get with Nemesis.

Pete DeCourcy is Editor in Chief of Comic book daily. He also manages Blue Beetle Comics in Barrie, Ontario. You can find more of his writings at the Simple Art of Crime and You Practically Rock. 2009 has been a good year for him, and he’s excited to see what 2010 brings.

From the website:

Paul Pope’s new print, ‘Crepax’ is finally here!  Available in a regular (pictured above) and variant edition (below) the prints were printed in-house at Nakatomi Print Labs.  The regular print is numbered in an edition of 140, and Nakatomi will only have 20 of the variant edition for sale!

Both prints are IN HAND and will ship immediately.

Paul is donating 100% of his proceeds from the sale of these prints to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund- CBLDF.org.

This isn’t Paul’s first foray into fashion design, he’s done design work for Diesel a few years back that was met with quite a bit of acclaim.

So, for all you stylish muther’s out there, go get some beautiful shirts!