Weekend Reading: Chaykin, Kubert, Harrison and Harlan

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Site Features, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,

You know how you can tell that Summer's over? There aren't any more big budget super-hero movies coming out. Fortunately, there's all kinds of stuff on the internets to keep us occupied.

Beau Smith writes about the late Joe Kubert.

Tom Spurgeon writes about Harry Harrison.

I would’ve watched the heck out of any Daredevil movie that was done like this trailer:

Comic Strip of the Day talks about Richard Thompson and his decision to retire from Cul de Sac because of illness.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Chaykin, Kubert, Harrison and Harlan

Kickstarter: Dead West

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent,

I love any kind of mash-up where genres that don’t normally go together are creatively intermingled: vampire detectives, robot boxers, super dinosaurs...

Writer Carl Elvis and artist Claudio Munoz have created Dead West, a combining of cowboys and monsters that looks right in my wagon wheelhouse. When a gold rush town starts attracting supernatural elements, Victor Frankenstein creates a “Frankenstein sheriff” to keep the peace along with his pals, a six-gun mummy and a Billy The Kid-style vampire.

The art looks great and the concept sounds like a lot of fun. They’re short on their Kickstarter funding, so if this seems as appealing to you as it does to me, give ‘em a hand, pardner.

[Artwork: Dead West]

Read More | Kickstarter

Weekend Reading: Dark Horse, Tokyopop, Borders, Glut & Apes

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Dark Horse Comics, TokyoPop,

So, not a great week for comic book publishers as Tokyopop finally called it quits. If you have a project over there, it's a good time to get a lawyer to look over your contract and see about rights reversion when the publisher goes away without declaring bankruptcy (yet) or getting sold.

Then Dark Horse laid off a bunch of employees, many of them beloved and had been there a long time.

But at least the US Government is stepping in to try to stop Borders executives from looting the stores they’ve already ruined.

Rise: I love the way the new Planet of the Apes comic book from Boom! is looking. The Scoop has a sneak preview of the first issue, on sale April 27.

Victor: Here’s a great interview with writer Don Glut that’s mostly about Frankensten. “Why don't I do a series of Frankenstein novels that would be based on the movies and all of these other things? In each one I would bring in some other character from fiction or whatever. I would create this whole Frankenstein universe.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Dark Horse, Tokyopop, Borders, Glut & Apes

Weekend Reading: Halloween, Stan Lee, and The Walking Dead

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, DC Comics, Image Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics,

Happy Halloween to all of you!

My costume this year is simple - I’m going to walk around with my iPad and call myself The Future Of Comics. Which, I admit, is something I do pretty much every day.

First off, congratulations to my pals at Boom! Studios and their sales on Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero #1. And kudos to Boom for sharing their actual numbers.

And if you’d like a 10-page freeview of the November release of Stan Lee’s The Traveler #1 by Mark Waid and Chris Hardin, Scoop has that for you too.

Let’s see what else is out on the internets...

Zombies: Pop culture historian Jim Beard writes about the Walking Dead phenomenon that will soon be sweeping the nation thanks to the new AMC TV series.

Beard, by the way, is the editor of a new anthology that looks back at the Batman TV series of the 1960s, Gotham City: 14 Miles.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Halloween, Stan Lee, and The Walking Dead

Weekend Reading: Mo Willems, Bruce Timm, TMNT and Wally Wood

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Another big week for people with money to throw around as Nickelodeon just bought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $60 million. This is yet another reason why it’s great to hold onto your copyrights. If you’re just working on Batman And The Outsiders #128, you already know it’s a basically a boilerplate work-for-hire contract, but if you’ve created Dingo, Rescue Dog Of The Outback get that thing copyrighted in your name and hold onto it. Because it’s always better for you to have the control - and any related money - than it is to just give it away to a corporation. In the meantime, if you’re tired of reading about contract negotiations, take a look around the internet and discover what folks like Mo Willems, Alan Kupperburg, Bill Crider and Bruce Timm are up to. Here’s how you can fill up your weekend:

Alan Kupperburg: Steven Thompson over at Hooray for Wally Wood, has a nice interview with Alan talking about his days working for Wood. Great stuff. Here’s a taste: “So then he (Wood) asked me if I could pencil Cannon for him. I took the pages home and opened up my T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and copied out the appropriate panels and adapted them to the situation. And Woody flipped out. He said, ‘You’re hired.’ Within three weeks I was also writing Sally and Cannon.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Mo Willems, Bruce Timm, TMNT and Wally Wood