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Spider-Man MovieThis is the week where the comics industry slows down for a couple of days as everyone saves their big news for Comic Con International in San Diego. That gets going on Wednesday evening - Preview Night - and you can expect the announcements to start flying faster than anyone can cut and paste a press release, and everyone's abuzz with their favorite version of the four Spider-Man movies.

For now, though, the internets still have some things to read:

A weather-battered Beau Smith looks at Spider-Man.

Longbox Graveyard also has a look at Spider-Man, of the Steve Ditko era.

Hero Complex reports the return of Marc Silvestri’s Cyberforce, with the words “Kickstarter” and “free” as part of the launch equation.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Spider-Man, Cyberforce, and Norm Breyfogle


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FrazzTo everyone suffering through the summer heat wave, wind and electrical storms and power outages in the U.S., my heart goes out to you. If you’ve still got the internets, here are some things to help ease the pain.

Daniel Best reports on trouble at Oz Comic-Con in Australia this weekend.

With convention season in full swing, the critic Bill Sherman reviews Rob Salkowitz’ Comic-Con And The Business Of Pop Culture, an account of the 2011 Comic Con International in San Diego. “Salkowitz approaches his topic as both a business analyst and a longtime fanboy -- and he shows a commendable breadth of knowledge about both the medium and the somewhat clannish fan culture.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Frazz, Doc Savage and Spike Milligan


Prime #1Okay, so this is happening.

My good friend Paul O’Connor who used to write for Malibu Comics back in the day and is now one of the founder partners of the app company Appy Entertainment (and creator of the Longbox Graveyard blog), dropped me an email a couple of months ago. He wanted to host a Malibu Comics panel at this year’s Comic Con in San Diego.

2012, it turns out, marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Malibu Comics; the company opened its doors in January 1987 and released its first three books in July of that year: Libby Ellis #1, Stealth Force #1 and Dark Wolf #1.

2012 also marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Ultraverse, Editor-In-Chief Chris Ulm's big idea to launch a writer-based super-hero universe. He started to implement his UV vision in the summer of 1992. The convention season that year was spent rounding up the seven creators who would become the Ultraverse Founders - Len Strazewski, James Hudnall, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Mike Barr, Gerard Jones and James Robinson - which culminated in the first Ultraverse Founders Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.

Click to continue reading Comic Con International: Ultraverse & Malibu Comics


Roger SliferYou’ve probably seen this all over the internets, but a little more won’t hurt. Veteran comic book writer Roger Slifer was hit by a car this past weekend.

Roger worked for both DC (where he created Lobo) and Marvel (where he worked on Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One), and later produced and/or story-edited the TV shows Jem And The Holograms, Transformers, Street Fighter and others.

Here’s the story, as reported by Flint Dille:

“Roger Slifer is in intensive care after being run over in a hit and run on Friday Night around 1:00. We had originally thought of keeping this quiet, because Roger is a fairly private guy, but as word is out and time might be of the essence if we're going to find the hit-and-run driver, I'll post what I know.

Click to continue reading Roger Slifer Could Use A Hand


ImagineFXIf you're living in England, especially near the town of Bath, Future Publishing could be looking for you.

They need a Staff Writer for ImagineFX. It's a six month contract, but you'll be working "at the heart of the fantasy, sci-fi, video game and manga art community."

Here's what they expect of you: "You’ll write and plan artist interviews, reader galleries, book and comic reviews as well as exhibition reviews and convention reports. Also you will be responsible for daily and weekly updates to the website as well as managing and moderating the 8000-user ImagineFX.com forums and galleries."

Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Future Publishing

Read More | Staff Writer

Fatale

“[I'm] beginning a shift from work-for-hire to books I own, instead. I hit a point with the work-for-hire stuff where I was starting to feel burned out on it. Like my tank is nearing empty on superhero comics, basically. It's been a great job, and I think I found ways to bring my voice to it, but I have a lot of other things I want to do as a writer, too, so I'm going to try that for a while instead.”

- Ed Brubaker in an interview with Tom Spurgeon

And check out our other notable quotes.

Read More | The Comics Reporter

Phantom by Terry Beatty

If you've ever wanted to own a piece of original art from The Phantom comic strip, now's your chance.

My pal Terry Beatty is having an art sale and he's listed a bunch of Phantom Sunday strips on his site and they're just beautiful. Terry pencils and inks the strip these days, and he does a great job. The black-and-white comic strips have a very noir quality to them. Even if you have no interest in buying them, run over to Terry's site and have a look at some gorgeous art anyway.

You might just change your mind.

[Artwork: A panel from The Phantom, illustrated by Terry Beatty]


ThanosA friend of mine has a bet that The Avengers' will gross $2 billion (with a "b") by the end of the year, so I guess we're all still talking about Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

If you’re still talking about them, Longbox Graveyard looks at Thanos and The Infinity Gauntlet.

Then LG’s honcho Paul O’Connor passes along this link with everything you need to know about Thanos.

Alan Moore, critical of movies made from his comics, is writing his own movie, which I hope someone adapts into a comic.

It’s never too late to read a story or two from Don McGregor about his father.

My pal Steven Thompson has been streamlining his collection and just recently posted a bunch of great bargains at Booksteve’s Bookstore: Kirby, Captain Marvel, Robert Crumb, Superman, Batman, Wonder Wart-Hog...you can’t go wrong!

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Avengers, Alan Moore and Don McGregor


James Bond LexiconMy pal Rich Handley at Hasslein Publishing has a big favor to ask. He publishes a great bunch of books on shows and movies like Planet of the Apes, Back To The Future, James Bond, Red Dwarf and lots of others. He's asked for a no-cost favor, so I'm posting it here, mostly verbatim.

"Paul and I at Hasslein Publishing are trying to qualify for one of 12 small-business grants from Chase in order to build up Hasslein into something bigger than it currently is. We need 250 votes within an eight-day period to qualify, so please vote before June 30!

"Each grant is for a whopping $250,000. It's a huge long-shot, as I'm sure a lot of people are submitting their companies to this program, but if we were to win one of the grants, we'd have a ton of money to do amazing things with our company, which would be a good thing.

Click to continue reading Planet Of The Apes, Back To The Future And James Bond!


Cerebus #11Years ago, I owned a piece of original Dave Sim art from Cerebus. It was a page from Cerebus #11. I bought it at a New York convention from Dave’s then-wife Deni who was selling pages at their table. It’s the page just before the very first full page appearance of Cockroach.

It was the multi-panel page where Cockroach is off-panel, ranting like a nutcase and Cerebus is going through a number of twisted facial expressions.

If I was a true collector, I would’ve bought the page with the actual first appearance of Cockroach. But I really liked all the different animated expressions on Cerebus’ face. It was a tour-de-force of character drawing.

I bought it for $15.

I framed it when I got back home and it hung on my wall through various moves over the years. When space got tight, thought, I sold it off.

Click to continue reading Cerebus Original Art

Read More | Kickstarter via Bleeding Cool


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