Current Transmissions
Comic Industry Job Board – November 2011
In the wide world of comics there’s always a need for talented people — and not just for creating the comics. The books you read every day are supported by an immense infrastructure of editors, publishers, designers, distributors and retailers that make American comics what it is today. And despite the frail economy, the comics industry is looking for employees.
We’ve compiled a list of all the openings in the comics industry for non-creative office positions and put it all into one place. It’s a good resource if you’re looking to work in comics, and also for armchair speculators seeing what companies are looking to do by seeing what positions they’re hiring for. We accumulated these by looking on publisher websites and job boards — if you know of a job not listed here, let us know!
- November 3, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
The Loneliest Astronauts signs off">Space comedy The Loneliest Astronauts signs off
After two years of (almost) weekly adventures, the erstwhile astronauts Dan and Steve are ending their tour of duty in outer space as the long-running webcomic The Loneliest Astronauts finishes this week. Created by writer Kevin Church and artist Ming Doyle, it’s reminiscent of the recent flick Moon if written as a drunken comedy with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
Church is a longtime denizen of the comics Internet going back to the early comics blogosphere days, and for the past few years he’s quietly assembled his own line of webcomics illustrated by different artists under the banner AgreeableComics.com. He wrote a handful of printed comics for BOOM! Studios a few years back, but it’s this quiet armada of quirky webcomics for which becoming known.
In the case of his Loneliest Astronauts collaborator Doyle, she’s gone from an online indie darling (and Project: Rooftop regular) to getting mainstream Marvel attention with work in Girl Comics and the upcoming resumption of Fantastic Four.
With all 87 installments online for free, readers can check out the entire series, and wait for a possible print edition. Fans of the work can look forward next month to seeing Church and Doyle reunite to revive their Star Trek fan comic Boldly Gone.
- November 3, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Dark Horse adds manga to digital store
Dark Horse launched its digital comics store earlier this year with just one manga series, Lone Wolf & Cub, and a promise that more is on the way, and today the publisher delivered, adding six more series to its digital store: Crying Freeman, Hellsing, Lady Snowblood, Old Boy, Path of the Assassin and Trigun.
Most of the series are priced at $5.99 per volume, a bit high for digital manga, and Crying Freeman will set you back an extra buck. All are older series — Dark Horse was one of the first manga publishers in the U.S. — and all are squarely in the seinen demographic, aimed at young adult males. Since that’s the target audience for most of Dark Horse’s other comics, the selection makes sense, but the publisher might draw in new readers with digital editions of its CLAMP manga, including the new series Gate 7.
- November 3, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Alabaster coming to Dark Horse?">Is Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Alabaster coming to Dark Horse?
Dark Horse has released this artwork (see the full image below), teasing only that it’s “coming soon from Dark Horse Comics and Caitlín R. Kiernan!” Fans of the fantasy author will likely identify the crouching figure as Dancy Flammarion, the monster-hunting albino from the Florida backwoods introduced in the 2001 novel Threshold. The character’s adventures were later chronicled in the 2006 short-story collection Alabaster, which sports a cover and interior illustrations by Courtney Crumrin creator Ted Naifeh.
On her Livejournal, an excited but relatively tight-lipped Kiernan reveals the official announcement is coming Wednesday.
The author is, of course, no stranger to comics, having written The Sandman spinoff The Dreaming (for which she won Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild awards), and the miniseries The Girl Who Would Be Death and The Sandman Presents: Bast.
- November 3, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Comics market on the verge of a turnaround?
Action Comics #1
Comics | ICv2′s latest report on the comics market shows a mixed picture for monthly comics and graphic novels. While DC’s New 52 reboot has helped push comics sales, the graphic-novel versions of those comics won’t be out for months — and Amazon is gobbling up a larger and larger share of graphic novel sales, especially at the high end. And this is interesting: “Digital sales are growing as a percentage of the market, but apparently not at the expense of print sales. Retailers interviewed by ICv2 do not feel they’re losing sales to digital competition on DC’s day and date titles.” That seems to be more anecdote than data, but you would think retailers would be the first to notice a drop in sales. The report also includes lists of the top 10 properties in various categories. [ICv2]
- November 3, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Your Wednesday Sequence SupaSpecTac DeluXXXury Edition #2
It’s a little something different on Your Wednesday Sequence this week, folks. For weeks now I’ve been wanting to dig into the rock-solid action storytelling of Benjamin Marra, who draws comics like Jack Kirby given a dose of Giotto DNA and filled to the bursting point with speed metal and grindhouse movies. Ben’s work on Night Business and Gangsta Rap Posse (a bracing new issue of which was just released) is about as close to flawlessly constructed as comics get: deceptively simple strings of phenomenal drawings that flow like a waterfall. Luckily enough for me, Ben was willing to answer a few of my questions on composition, layout, pacing, and a bunch of other comic book-making inside dope. And luckily enough for you, I’m posting our Q and A right here. Get ready to learn from a master, kids…
From Gangsta Rap Posse #2
MATT SENECA: Your comics have always emphasized gridded layouts, but in your latest comic, Gangsta Rap Posse #2, you stick almost exclusively to a basic six-panel grid, with each of the frames the exact same size as all the others. What makes that layout so appealing to you?
BENJAMIN MARRA: There are several reasons. Firstly, I think it’s the most efficient system for constructing and reading comic book pages. Many masters of comic book art and storytelling have worked off of it, like Kirby, Alan Moore (to an extent), Kyle Baker and Gary Panter. If the six-panel grid was good enough for Kirby, it’s good enough for me. It’s also a matter of time. If my page layout is pre-determined I’ve spared myself from having to solve many additional problems and can spend time focusing exclusively on what the panels contain. Additionally, I think it’s a more accessible format for new readers. A lot of comics these days focus too much on doing unnecessarily crazy page layouts (I guess stemming from Neal Adams’ response to Steranko?) with panels, instead of focusing on what’s within the panels, which is what’s really crucial. Wild panel layouts just confuse readers who aren’t already versed in comics as a language.
- November 2, 2011 @ 02:02 PM by Matt Seneca
Super Pro K.O.! returns for a second fall">Preview: Super Pro K.O.! returns for a second fall
Super Pro K.O. Volume 2
The second volume of Jarrett Williams’ awesome wrestling comics, Super Pro K.O.!: Chaos in the Cage, headbutts its way into comic shops today. Courtesy of Oni Press, we’re pleased to present a look at 23 pages from the new volume. Check it out after the jump.
- November 2, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Rub the Blood">Robot 6 Q&A | Art Comix pay tribute to the 1990s in Rub the Blood
Rub the Blood
One of the more interesting projects to pop up on Kickstarter lately is Rub the Blood, “an Art Comix tabloid that explores the lasting influence (for better or worse) of the Early 90′s Collector Boom comics of Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, etc. on today’s most fringe underground cartoonists.”
Co-edited by Pat Aulisio and Ian Harker, the project fittingly draws its name from a 1990s cover gimmick and features contributions from a variety of art comix pros. In addition to Aulisio and Harker, contributors include Josh Bayer, William Cardini, Victor Cayro, PB Kain, Keenan Marshall Keller, Peter Lazarski, Benjamin Marra, Jim Rugg, Thomas Toye and Mickey Z. Rub the Blood will debut at the 2011 Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Fest.
Aulisio and Harker were kind enough to share a few thoughts and details about the project and its inspiration with me; my thanks for their time.
JK: Where did the idea originate to put this anthology together?
Ian: It’s been something we’ve kicked around in various shapes and forms for a few years now. The joke was that one day Rob Liefeld will be just as adored among the art comix crowd as Fletcher Hanks is now.
- November 2, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Artist examines secret identities of superheroes (in clear plastic bags)
"Peter Parker," by Simon Monk
Daily Design Discoveries spotlights Secret Identity, “an ongoing series of paintings” by U.K. artist Simon Monk featuring plastic figures of superheroes in clear polythene bags.
Monk explains on his website: “Superheroes are icons of male power and potency whose comic book and film adventures see them engaged in epic battles across the universe, yet these mythic figures have another life as consumer objects to be found in commercial and domestic contexts. Placed in carrier bags and hung on a hook in a domestic space they become recently purchased objects, robbed of the enormous power they wield in their narratives, their dynamic energy stymied. Despite this reduction they remain irresistible in their cartoonish rage and pride.”
Check out more from Secret Identity below, and on Monk’s website.
- November 2, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Lovelace & Babbage gets its own app">Lovelace & Babbage gets its own app
Oh, the delicious irony of it: Sydney Padua, creator of the delightful quasi-historical webcomic Lovelace & Babbage, has launched an iPad app, thus bringing the parents of the computer to its most recent incarnation. The app is free and includes one complete story, with another available for $2.99.
Like a long-form Kate Beaton comic, Lovelace & Babbage casts Charles Babbage (inventor of the first programmable computer) and Ada Lovelace (the first programmer) as steampunk heroes fighting a variety of evildoers under the aegis of Queen Victoria herself. Padua sets up her stories in an alternate universe but brings in plenty of real historical figures, and both the comic and the app are graced with plenty of footnotes. Padua has a talent for picking out the odd but interesting bits of history, so while the footnotes are scholarly, they are not dry.
Here’s some more good news for Lovelace & Babbage fans: Padua recently announced she is taking time off her day job to focus on her comics, an effort that has already borne fruit in the form of Vampire Poets, a prologue in rhyme accompanied by a few actual contemporary poems about her heroes.
- November 2, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Superman for three issues">Nicola Scott joins Superman for three issues
Art from Superman #3
Former Birds of Prey artist Nicola Scott will step in for Jesus Merino on three issues of Superman, beginning with this month’s Issue 3.
DC Comics announced this morning that Scott will illustrate issues 3, 5 and 6, with regular artist Merino penciling Issue 4 before returning for Issue 7, which features the debut of new writers Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen. The duo replaces George Perez, who leaves as writer and breakdown artist following the sixth issue.
Scott, a DC-exclusive artist who also worked on Secret Six and Wonder Woman, will next collaborate with James Robinson on the relaunched Justice Society of America.
Superman #3, which pits the Man of Steel against a new foe targeting those dearest to Clark Kent, goes on sale Nov. 23. Check out a preview of the issue below.
- November 2, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
almost everything">A $2,200 table for the Spider-Man fan who has almost everything
If you’re a Spider-Man fan in need of a table and you also have $2,200 burning a hole in your web-lined pocket, allow me to draw your attention to this: a one-of-a-kind Spider-Man sculpture made from recycled metal and old automotive parts. While it is coated to protect the wall-crawler — or floor-crawler — from rust, it doesn’t come with the glass tabletop that will make the sculpture practical; you’ll have to shell out a little extra for that. You’ll also have to cover shipping costs from Thailand, which I imagine for a 110-pound object is probably pretty steep.
- November 2, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Editorial cartoonist loses job following plagiarism allegations
It’s one thing to steal an idea and transform it into something new; lots of creators have stood on the shoulders of others. It’s another thing to copy something and make it into something worse.
The Daily Cartoonist has been hot on the tail of David Simpson, an editorial cartoonist for Oklahoma’s Urban Tulsa Weekly. The story started last week when blogger Alan Gardner noted similarities between one of Simpson’s cartoons and an old cartoon by the late Jeff MacNelly. They weren’t just similar concepts; Gardner overlaid the cartoons and they line up pretty well. He told the Poynter Institute’s Bob Andelman that it looked like Simpson didn’t photocopy the older cartoon but redrew it, down to the small details. The main difference between them was not visual but conceptual, as Schlock Mercenary creator Howard Tayler points out in comments to Gardner’s post:
- November 2, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Steve Rude art discounted to raise bail following creator’s arrest [Updated]
Courtesy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office
Prices of Steve Rude’s artwork have been reduced in an effort to raise money for bail and legal fees following his arrest late Monday in what’s characterized as a dispute with neighbors.
“Steve has had a back and forth with the neighbors for quite some time now that started over their barking dogs,” states a message on Rude’s website titled “Help Bail the Dude Out.” “Last night Steve got hauled in.”
While details are scant, the Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff’s Office lists the Nexus co-creator as being held on charges of assault and failure to comply with a court order.
Rude’s art auctions can be viewed on his website and on eBay.
Update (Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 6:50 a.m. PT): Rude’s wife Jaynelle wrote last night on his Facebook page that he was able to post bail, but that they’re still in need of financial assistance: “Now we have to pay for the legal counsel so he doesn’t end up back doing hard time for trying to keep his sanity. All he wants is to be left alone to create his art, not harassed by people who call the police on our kids because a frisbee ended up in their yard.”
- November 1, 2011 @ 05:16 PM by Kevin Melrose
Action">Food or Comics? | Everybody wants a piece of the Action
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Graeme McMillan
It’s a slow week, this week; if I had $15, I’d use it to catch up on some recent enjoyments like Action Comics #3 (DC, $3.99) and OMAC #3 (DC, $2.99), two of my favorite titles from the New 52 relaunch–OMAC in particular has been a really weird and wonderful joy–as well as the final issue of Marvel’s great and sadly underrated Mystic revival (#4, $2.99). I’d also see if the parody-tastic Shame Itself #1 (Marvel, $3.99) lives up to its potential, because “Wyatt Cenac + Colleen Coover” sounds pretty promising to these ears.
- November 1, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin