Latest Andru Edwards Videos
Comic Book Jobs: Who’s Hiring? Egmont
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,
I’ve always wanted to live and work in London, but I’m stuck stateside for the time being. You might not be, and if that’s the case, Egmont UK could have a job with your name on it. It’s not a comics-specific job, but Egmont UK is part of the giant Egmont empire and they do publish a lot of comic book material – like the Disney comics that Boom! Kids is currently publishing - so this could be an in for you and a chance to burrow into the organization.
So if you “know your Bieber from your Beaker and your Selena from your SpongeBob” and “have a passion for children’s publishing and enjoy communicating with kids,” then Egmont’s Go Girl magazine is looking for you. They need a Writer/Sub-Editor to join their team and be a, wait for it, team player.
You’ll need at least a year’s experience in magazine publishing or a similar area, and writing for websites would give you a leg up on the competition. All applicants will need to take a written test, so you’ll need to study up.
The application is at the Egmont website. Hurry, though, because this offer closes on July 29th.
[Artwork: cover to a recent issue of Go Girl]
Advertisement
Free Comic Book Day: John Stanley, Jim Shooter And The Last Airbender
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,
It’s here! Saturday, May 1 is Free Comic Book Day! My favorite day of the year! Okay, not really my favorite day of the year, but any day you can get some free comics has to feel like an extra birthday, right? A lot of publishers are producing some great stuff to pick up, but here are the six that I’m most looking forward to:
Library of American Comics #0 (IDW)
Eisner Award-winning Editor Dean Mullaney is an old friend who does great archival work over at IDW. If he published Milton Caniff’s old shopping lists I wouldn’t be able to hit Amazon’s “add to shopping cart” button fast enough. This special preview comic has 32 pages of excerpts from upcoming collections of Archie by Bob Montana, Secret Agent Corrigan by Al Williamson, Blondie by Chic Young, The Complete Bloom County Library by Berkeley Breathed, Rip Kirby by Alex Raymond, Polly and Her Pals by Cliff Sterrett, Dick Tracy by Chester Gould, and Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray. This looks like a great introduction into some good old stuff.
Toy Story (Boom! Kids)
I’m biased here because I have kids and they love Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear. With Toy Story 3 popping up this summer, BOOM Kids! is ready to hand out some all-new adventures by Jesse Blaze Snider and Nathan Watson. I’m in because I already get the regular comics and their other Pixar stuff, so I’m a little OCD about this.
Click to continue reading Free Comic Book Day: John Stanley, Jim Shooter And The Last Airbender
BOOM! Mickey Mouse and Friends #296
I’ll get this out of the way early: I don’t like Mickey Mouse as a character. I find him the most irritating one in the Disney cartoon universe and his high-pitched voice makes him the Jennifer Tilly of animation for me. So I was all poised to not like the new Boom! Kids comic with him as the star.
Naturally, I’m wrong, again. Mickey Mouse and Friends #296 kicks off Boom!’s launch of the title with a tale by Stefano Ambrosio (translated by Saida Temafonte) and artists Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, Roberto Santillo and Marco Giglione that ties in with Sorcerer’s Apprentice continuity (from Fantasia). Mickey’s still the apprentice to the sorcerer Nereus and still not doing a good job, magically speaking. When Nereus leaves for an emergency, Mickey is tricked out of the drought-suffering village’s magic crystal by Peg-Leg Pete.
Before Nereus returns and realizes what a dope his apprentice is, Mickey has to join a sorcerer’s team in the far-off city of Grand Haven and enter a tournament to try to win the crystal back. Fortunately, he’s found Goofy, a sorcerer who really wants to be an alchemist and herbalist, and Donald Duck, a sorcerer with a pet dragon. Together, the three form their own sorcerer’s team and set out to defeat Pete, who’s determined to stop them (and he’s got Disney’s classic Beagle Boys on his side).
Click to continue reading BOOM! Mickey Mouse and Friends #296
BOOM! Uncle Scrooge #384
I was happy to see that Boom! Kids has an Uncle Scrooge title in their Disney line-up as a companion to their Donald Duck title. The Ducks are my favorite Disney characters, partly because of the way they look (c’mon, they’re ducks!) and partly because they’re the ones that are most likely to take off on some wild adventure.
In “Uncle Scrooge And The Ghostly Carriage,” writer Per-Erik Hedman (and translator Stefania Bronzoni) and artist Wanda Taggino have Uncle Scrooge gathering up his usual crew - Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie - and his lucky dime. They’re off to Germany to check out “another moneymaking venture,” a castle Scrooge bought “for a steal.” As luck would have it, the castle is haunted and Scrooge’s recurring nemesis, Magica De Spell, sees this as an opportunity to grab that dime. What follows is a ghostly, madcap, door-slamming style French farce of trap doors, hidden staircases, secret bookcase doors, and a ghost.
Taggino draws in the classic Carl Barks/Don Rosa style and infuses the pages with great energy. Hedman’s script is fast-paced and he wraps the whole thing up in 16 pages. The same team has a second story in the issue, “Salt And Gold.” Continuity-wise, it picks up where the previous story ends - Magica is still after the ducks who are now joined by Gyro Gearloose for an adventure in alchemy, a subject near and dear to Scrooge’s greedy heart. It’s a cliffhanger, to be continued next issue.
There’s a cover variant for this issue with a Don Rosa cover. I don’t have that one, but if you’re a collector, I’m sure you’ll want it.
[Artwork: a panel from Uncle Scrooge #384, ©Disney]
BOOM! Donald Duck And Friends #347
I’ve always liked the Disney comics, whether they were published by Gold Key, or Gemstone or Gladstone or Gearloose or whomever. I always thought they were fun comics for kids. I love what Carl Barks did, and the same with Don Rosa. I also like the ones that aren’t by them. I even like the sillier ones like Moby Duck. I liked all the expensive hardcover and trade collections too, but I always wanted to see the comics targeted more towards kids because I think they can help grow a new generation of comic readers.
So I was glad when Boom! picked up the license for their Boom! Kids line of comics (which already includes The Muppets and the Pixar titles). They’re putting them out on a regular schedule, picking up with the old numbering and pricing them at a good $2.99 – aiming them squarely at the kid market. It’s a good, smart play on their part.
Click to continue reading BOOM! Donald Duck And Friends #347
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: Disney, Pixar, Atomic Robo and John Stanley
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,
Free Comics! Hooray! I know it takes a great deal of time, effort and money to pull this thing off, and I’m grateful to all involved, especially Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics) who first pitched the idea. I have no insight into whether or not it actually grows the industry, brings in new readers or whatever, but it sure is fun and it gets me to my LCS on a not-Wednesday and I usually grab a couple of extra things at cover price.
The 8th Annual Free Comic Book Day event is coming up this Saturday, May 2 and looking over the list of what’s going to be available (remembering that my mileage may vary as much as your own), here are my top 5 wants:
ATOMIC ROBO AND FRIENDS (Red 5 Comics) by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener.
I’ll let the boys’ own website explain why Atomic Robo is just a six-pack of awesome. Here they are talking about the first AR collection: Atomic Robo and The Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne is “a collection of his exploits from a secret mission for the U.S. Army in 1938 to unearthing a long-forgotten underground complex in modern Italy. In between he battles a 5,000 year old steampowered pyramid, Stephen Hawking, and the rigors of Mars.” And they’re giving away a free sample of the newest series? Include me in. Besides, they’re already Eisner-nominated, the first step towards getting Eisner-nominated again! Plus, the start of a new run, Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time #1, hits the stores on Wednesday April 29th, so it’s twice the Robo action this week.
NANCY AND MELVIN THE MONSTER (Drawn & Quarterly) by John Stanley.
John Stanley is a comic book genius and rightly so. His name deserves to be as well-known as Stan, Jack, Steve, and Will. This promises to be a great sample of his work on both Nancy and his own creation, Melvin The Monster (and serves as a sneak preview to D&Q’s forthcoming Melvin collection). The want list was invented just for this book.
Click to continue reading FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: Disney, Pixar, Atomic Robo and John Stanley
THE INCREDIBLES: Family Matters #1: Mark Waid & Boom Kids’ Incredible Job
I’ve been waiting for The Incredibles comic book since I first heard about Boom’s new line of comics for kids last year. Originally given the working title of Zoom, the line’s been branded now with a proper line-extending imprint, Boom! Kids and the results for the launch are spectacular.
The Incredibles: Family Matters #1 kicks off the first of Boom! Kids Disney • Pixar books. The 4-issue mini-series is an original adventure by writer Mark Waid and artist Marcio Takara. Waid takes a classic super-hero storyline - I won’t give it away because it spoils the whole cliffhanger ending kind of thing – and templates it over The Incredibles and walks away a winner. He makes the characters’ transition from animated feature to comic books feel seamless and gets right into the all-new adventure without doling out unnecessary backstory. He packs a lot into 22 pages, and it’s all clear, crisp and fun. Never seen the movie? Not a problem, there’s enough here to fill in the gaps without feeling left out. Love the movie? Your love can easily transfer to these pages and satisfy you until the movie’s sequel comes out. Waid has captured the very essence of the movie and what’s here is nothing short of a Master Class in how-to-do-it right. Takara’s artwork is spot on and he packs each page with visual playfulness.
There are 4 variant covers by Michael Avon Oeming, and a special one by Mike Mignola, if that’s your kind of thing. Less than 24 hours after the first issue hit the stands, my LCS only had two copies left out of over 20 ordered (I asked). The cover to your right is the one I bought. With The Muppet Show #1 already sold out, and the first issue of The Incredibles: Family Matters following suit, it looks like Boom! Kids is off to a great start. Now here’s a tip – feel free to enjoy The Incredibles comic in the privacy of your own Fan Cave, but if you have kids and you want to grow the next generation of funny book fanatics, sit down with them and read it together. You won’t be sorry.
If you want to preview some interior pages from the first issue, you can click here.
[Disclosure #1: Mark Waid and I have known each other for years and during our awkward not-quite teenage years, had many lunches together at an awful Hollywood restaurant called New York George.]
[Disclosure #2: I used to work with Boom toppers Ross Richie and Andrew Cosby at Malibu Comics.]
[Disclosure #3: At Book Expo America (LA 2008) I asked Boom Marketing and Sales Director Chip Mosher if he knew where Ross was. He did.]
(artwork @ 2009 Disney/Pixar)
One of the next Boom! Kids releases is the comic book version of Disney•Pixar’s Cars, starring Lightning McQueen. I talked about it earlier in this post.