This Saturday (April 25), Archie Comics will participate in the Kid’s Comic Con held at the Bronx Community College in New York. The company sent a rundown of its events, complete with the creators signing at the Archie booth.
Tag Archives: Creators
Marvel Announces Captain America Week
Leading up to the landmark Captain America #50 issue, Marvel has unveiled Captain America Week at the company website. The site features original art, interviews with creators and a hint at what is to come for the hero. Perhaps Steve Rogers will make an appearance from the grave!
CAPTAIN AMERICA #50 (MAR092559)
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Pencils by LUKE ROSS
Cover by STEVE EPTING
Rated T+ …$3.99
On Sale May 20, 2009
DC Sneak Peek: Wednesday Comics
DC Comics has released a couple of pages from the upcoming Wednesday Comics series, and it looks pretty schweeeeet!
The brainchild of DC Comics Art Director Mark Chiarello, WEDNESDAY COMICS is a unique and groundbreaking storytelling method — 16 pages, printed on broadsheet-size newsprint, featuring weekly stories by the best and brightest creators out there. It’s gotta look great, right?
Take the jump and take a gander!
Art Appreciation Moment of the Day: Jean Baptiste Vendamme
Since Marvel is going with the Wolverine Appreciation Month (oddly enough the company came up with that idea AFTER we started running these Art Appreciation Moments of the Day), I figured we’d get into the gimmick by running some Wolverine art done by creators.
This was supposed to be part of something bigger, He was having his hair cut by Mystic and stuff, and it was going to be great, and you would have loved it, and I would have been famous, and a studio would have hire me and stuff,
But as motivation seems to be gone, I ll let that to your imagination…
Robotika Back in Previews
With the new changes in Diamond’s minimum order amounts, small publishers and indipendent creators need up their marketing tactics if they want their titles to succeed. Alex Sheikman has either read my musings on the subject, or really listened to what Chip Mosher and Shannon Wheeler had to say on the recent Marketing 101 podcast, as he took those messages to heart and contacted us about his Atomika series.
To relaunch the series, Archaia is printing a double size issue of 64 pages containing the first issue of “For A Few Rubles More”, published back in 2008, and 32 new pages of story and art.
As always, Major Spoilers is here to promote the industry and its creators no matter how large or small the company.
Boom! Studios Announces Emerald City Comic Con Schedule
Those heading up to the Emerald City ComiCon this weekend in Seattle, Washington, should stop by the Boom! Studios booth, say “Hi” to everyone working, and get some autographs from the creators on hand. Boom! sent Major Spoilers the breakdown of the show exclusives, and word on the panel it is hosting Saturday afternoon.
Image Comics and CBLDF Team to Defend Your Liberties.
Press Release
20 March 2009 (Berkeley, CA) – At today’s ComicsPRO Annual Meeting, Image Comics announced plans to further expand its support of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the comics’ industry’s first response in the fight against censorship. Image will support the not-for-profit organization with a second installment of LIBERTY COMICS and will launch The CBLDF Liberty Series,* *a series of high-end variant covers featuring Image’s strongest titles with exclusive artwork not available anywhere else. All proceeds of both projects will go directly towards the Fund’s important defense of comics’ First Amendment rights.
Runners Goes Online
If you have never read Sean Wang’s Runners series, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy as soon as you can. If you can’t do that, head over to the newly launched website runnersuniverse.com to read the first series Runners: Bad Goods for free. The series takes a look at a group of alien smugglers who happen upon a shipment that is more than it appears – and then all heck breaks loose.
The follow up series Runners: The Big Snow Job, was to be published a year ago by Archaia Studios Press, but will now appear online when the Bad Goods runs concludes online.
“I’m still a fan of print comics,†continues Wang, “so the second series will still be collected into graphic novel format after it finishes posting online. But I hope to use the free webcomic to build the audience as large as possible in the meantime. I firmly believe that many who read the series online at www.runnersuniverse.com will still want to purchase the printed volumes. Hopefully, with a larger audience that is familiar with the series, comic stores can then order the books with more confidence that they aren’t ‘taking a chance’ on an unknown small press book. So everyone wins! “
Wang does point out something every web comic fan should do – purchase the collected editions of your favorite series to support the creators. I’ve done it with Penny Arcade, Wapsi Square, Least I Could Do, Sinfest, and The Dreamland Chronicles. Runners is an excellent series, and deserves your attention.
On The Next Major Spoilers Podcast: The Dark Crystal
For some reason, the Major Spoilers Crew veered off into talking about the Dark Crystal, and decided to examine the 27 year old film that has gained a huge cult following on the next podcast.
The Dark Crystal is a cult 1982 fantasy film directed by puppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz, creators of The Muppet Show. Although still marketed as a family film, it was notably darker than previous material created by them. Characters for which they are famous do not appear, but some of the same performers are used. The animatronics used in the film were considered groundbreaking at the time. The primary concept artist was the fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, famous for his distinctive faeriedwarf designs. Froud also cooberated with Jim Henson and Frank Oz for their next project, the 1986 film Labyrinth which was notably more light-hearted than The Dark Crystal.
As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.
We really want to include a lot of voice mails in our episodes. Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us a shout out about the Dark Crystal, the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind. Only the most awesome comments (good or bad) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!
We record the new show Tuesday night, so make sure you have your contribution to us by 5:00 PM CST Tuesday evening.
Buck Rogers #0 Gets 25-cent Cover Price
Dynamite Entertainment has announced the prelude issue (#0) of the company’s upcoming Buck Rogers series will feature a cover price of 25-cents.
“Dynamite’s reinvention of Buck Rogers will follow the path Dynamite has blazed with its previous successful titles, and to ensure the comics audience can read the launch, we’re releasing the comic at a .25¢ cover price. Dynamite is proud to be instrumental in re-inventing and continuing the legacies of historical characters and their worlds with creators who can execute great stories. We’re equally proud of the consistent critical and fan responses to our efforts, and are confident that Scott Beatty and Carlos Rafael will deliver. We’re confident that Buck Rogers will extend Dynamite’s own tradition of creating and bringing together generations of fans in the most thrilling way possible, which is why we are launching it at an Introductory Priced. This will allow retailers to stock it, and fans to try it, and see the quality, inexpensively.” stated Dynamite President Nick Barrucci.
The John Cassaday covered zero issue will arrive in May, 2009.
Tesla Coils and Doctor Who
The Doctor Who theme song never grows old – especially when there are two giant Tesla Coils involved.
Creators of the original Singing Tesla Coils, the crew of ArcAttack uses high tech wizardry to present music in a whole new light.
ArcAttack employs a unique DJ set up of their own creation (an HVDJ set up) to generate an ‘electrifying’ audio visual performance. The HVDJ pumps music through a PA System while two specially designed DRSSTC’s (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments.
These high tech machines produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt which put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers. The music consists of original highly dance-able electronic compositions that sometimes incorporates themes or dub of popular songs.
Freaking Awesome!
Of course I could have come up with something like that years ago had my mom not hit me upside the head everytime I stuck a metal knife in the wall outlet.
Making Digital Comics Work
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been a huge fan of electronic books and digital content for years. I bought one of the first e-readers commercially available, and used it until the batteries were unable to hold a charge any longer. The black- and -white interface of the e-readers of yesterday and today are perfect for reading books, but for comics — not so good.
Beyond the color issue, what else do e-reader creators, comic book publishers, and retailers need to do to make the transition to digital comics a success? I’ve got a few thoughts on that one.