Recently, Marvel Comics made news when Peter Parker was killed off in Ultimate Spider-Man. Keep in mind that the Spidey in Ulitmate Spider-Man exists in a different universe than the original Spider-Man, so even though Peter Parker is dead, he’s only dead in one comic universe. Hopefully that makes sense, as I want to move forward. (more…)
Famed comic book artist Gene Colan has passed away at the age 84. I was first introduced to Gene’s work when I was a kid, and I “discovered” him on Tomb of Dracula in the 1970s. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Gene was already a seasoned veteran in the comic industry. As a kid, his work on Tomb of Dracula and and Howard the Duck seemed very off and often even unsettling. That’s because Gene’s work didn’t look like any other artist in comics. There was a fluid movement to the way he drew that often gave his work a surreal quality, and his page layouts didn’t look like the layouts I saw in other comics. It wasn’t until I was a little older with a better understanding of comics that I went back and looked at Gene’s older work in books like Daredevil. This was how I came to realize that Gene Colan was an artist who had mastered all the tricks and rules of conventional comic book storytelling, and by the time I had “discovered” his work, he was rewriting the rules and pushing the boundaries in every way imaginable, from page composition to the way he rendered the human figure. To see his work during this transitional phase, without fully understanding the man or the medium, Gene’s work was just a bit strange to me. Years later I was able to recognize his for the true artistic master he was. To call him a legend is a disservice, because legends are like myths, and that is to say a legend exists as a memory passed down from generation to generation, with little to no tangible proof that it ever existed. But Gene Colan did exist, and even in his passing, he leaves behind an incredible body of work as proof of his talent and contribution to the medium, craft and art of comics.
DC Comic has recently announced the revamping of their entire line of comic books. This has cause much heated debate amongst fans, and I haven’t felt the need to weigh in, in part because I don’t care, and also because I don’t care. Did I mention that I don’t care?
But all of that changed when I read about a new title called Batwing. I’m not going to get into the details of who Batwing is, because it would be a long, complicated story that involves how DC creates these ridiculous events to sell tons of books. Instead, I will quote from a recent interview with the writer of the upcoming Batwing series, who describes the character as “the Batman of Africa.” (more…)
Recently I was lucky enough to collaborate with Robert Love on the comic book story Blind Monkey Style, which will be part of the PopGun Comic Anthology. The book is close to 500 pages and features an eclectic mix of some of the hottest talent in the industry. There is a great article on IGN Entertainment about PopGun, as well as a preview of Blind Monkey Style. You can pre-order your copy from Amazon today (NOTE: Amazon has the wrong cover posted, but it is the correct book). This is going to make a great gift for anyone you know who loves comics, but it will also work for those who don’t normally read comic books.
I have one major complaint about the first trade paperback collection of the comic book series Maintenance, and that is that it only gathers up the first three issues. Seriously, three issues might be enough if Maintenance sucked, in which case a single issue is all you would need to read. But that’s not the case with writer Jim Massey and artist Robbi Rodriguez’s comedic series, which really comes into its own by the third chapter, only to leave you wanting more. (more…)
Despite my complaints about the San Diego Comic-Con, some good did come out of my excursion into that madhouse. It is only now, after I’ve had time to really decompress, that I have taken inventory of what I picked up at the convention. In years past I’ve been known to spend too much money and taken anything that’s handed to me, as long as it’s free. But this year I exercised a little discretion, and the end result was that I had very little to carry back with me on the plane. (more…)
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