Gear Live Comic Book News: Articles Tagged Men In Black

Weekend Reading: Spacehawk, The Dandy, Kirby and Howard Cruse

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,

I'm stuffed with the turkey of Thanksgiving, but there's always time to unstuff some of the internets. Let's take a look at things to read between naps.

This has gotten a lot of play, but it’s too funny to not link to: Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has compiled his list of the 10 Least Powerful People In Comics. Number five made me laugh out loud.

And Spurgeon does it again: I think Howard Cruse is one of the great cartoonists to have emerged from the Underground Comix movement. Spurgeon’s interview with him is an excellent read.

The Dandy, the long-running British comic book for kids, is getting cancelled in December and the line-up for the last issue is spectacular - 75 stories in a 100 page issue. I want one. Oh yes I do! Lew Stringer shares some details.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Spacehawk, The Dandy, Kirby and Howard Cruse

Comic Con International: Ultraverse & Malibu Comics

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials,

Okay, 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

Ultraverse Returns!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Marvel Comics,

Who knew that a corner of the internets would be talking about Malibu Comics' Ultraverse this week?

A recent podcast interview with Steve Englehart opened up the Ultraverse files with his belief about why Marvel won't publish Ultraverse titles or use the characters these days. Bleeding Cool linked to the podcast and a gathering of commenters soon followed.

BC followed up the original post with a subsequent one involving comments made by Marvel’s Tom Brevoort about BC’s original post.

Not to be outdone, Heidi at Comics Beat uncovered the news that Malibu Comics co-founder Scott Rosenberg's non-publishing IP holding company, Platinum Studios was having tremendous problems. That opened up a discussion of the origins of Men In Black, now that the new movie in the franchise is out.

So enjoy your blast from comics' past!

[Artwork: Prime #1]

RIP Adam Adamowicz

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

I was very sad to hear that artist Adam Adamowicz has passed away.

He was a super-talented painter and conceptual artist and if you’re a fan of Skyrim and Fallout 3, you’ve seen his work.

I never met Adam but years ago, back in the early 1990s, I worked with him.

He was just starting out as a painter and I hired him to do a bunch of covers for various Malibu Comics imprints like Aircel and Adventure.

How did I find him? He found me, the old-fashioned, pre-internet way. He sent in some photos through the mail and I responded immediately.

I thought he was brilliant - he had a vivid, distinct style that I liked quite a bit. I gave him as much work as he wanted.

Click to continue reading RIP Adam Adamowicz

Read More | Adam's Blog

Barry Blair and Aircel Comics

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent,

Barry Blair passed away earlier this week. A very talented writer-and-artist, he was one of the founders of Aircel Comics with the backing of Ken Campbell. The imprint got its name from Campbell’s refrigeration company. Barry had a house stockpiled with a number of artists eager to create comics and they were all put to work churning out books for Aircel with titles like Elflord, Samurai and Warlock 5.

For a couple of years their books were very successful and featured work by Blair, Pat McEown, Dale Keown, Dave Cooper, Jim Somerville, Guang Yap and others during the black and white boom of the mid-1980s. When the market soured, Campbell was eager to shed the imprint. Rather than shut it down, he made a deal with Malibu Comics President Scott Rosenberg to take it over. Malibu was the parent company to Eternity Comics.

As part of the deal, Malibu would run the imprint and Barry would provide 4 books a month - a new book every Tuesday either by him or his studiomates or in some form of collaboration. In addition, Malibu would also sponsor Barry’s green card - he wanted to move out of Canada to New York City and found a place in the shadow of the United Nations building. For a couple of years, Malibu published a wide variety of Aircel books - Barry’s own adventure books, Dave Cooper’s wild parodies, and even a Jim Somerville zombie book.

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Read More | Bleeding Cool

Steve Perry: Aliens, Predators and Men In Black

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics,

Not too long ago, I was hired by a big time TV producer to ghostwrite a book for him. He had a screenplay that had been sent around and remained unsold and he wanted to try working backwards—convert the screenplay into a book, sell the book, get the book optioned and then sell the screenplay. Stranger things have happened, and he had enough contacts and name-value to give it a strong shot.

I read the screenplay and we met for lunch at one of those nearly trendy places where you’ll likely see Bronson Pinchot eating an egg-white omelet and Tori Spelling ordering half of a flour tortilla. The intended audience for the book was to be Young Adult. We discussed tone and he was very clear—somewhere between Holes and Men In Black. I’d seen the whole Holes movie (and read the book), and I’d seen both of the Men In Black movies. (Today’s MIB trivia:I had also been the editor of the original Men In Black comics back in the stone age of comics and still keep in touch with MIB creator Lowell Cunningham.)

After the meeting, I went to a used bookstore as quickly as possible—except that they don’t exist anymore. So I went to Amazon and ordered a copy of the Men In Black novelization. I wanted to see how someone else had done the job with a similar property. I liked what I read and was impressed by how many little details the author had added while keeping the tone of the movie. He had also done an excellent job of capturing the personalities of J and K, which is no easy task. That author was Steve Perry, and I studied his approach the way others might Stephanie Meyer or a certain Rowling. Without realizing it, he was helping me follow in his footsteps.

Click to continue reading Steve Perry: Aliens, Predators and Men In Black

Read More | Steve Bissette's Blog

Q&A: MARC BERNARDIN on Monster Attack Network and Genius

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews,

MARC BERNARDIN is a Senior Editor at Entertainment Weekly. He edits the Galleries that you find on EW.com, so he says, “whenever you see ‘25 Best Action Movies Starring Danes’ or ‘13 Peruvian Documentaries’ that’s my fault.” By his own admission, he’s also their Resident Geek. “I get called into every meeting that involves comic book, sci-fi, videogames, or general nerd subject matter.” Despite the turmoil in magazine publishing Marc admits he’s “survived the bloodlettings that have been sweeping the publishing business for the last six months or so. I guess there’s still some value in having a geek-in-residence…” That’s his day job. By night he, mostly with writing partner Adam Freeman, is a comic book writer who’s already squeezed some very nice books into the marketplace: The Highwaymen (Wildstorm), Monster Attack Network (AiT/Planet Lar) and Push (Wildstorm, and on sale now). Their upcoming series, Genius, was one of two winners in 2008’s Pilot Season contest from Top Cow.

TOM: First off, congrats on winning Top Cow’s 2008 Pilot Season. How long is the upcoming series going to be and when can we anxious voters expect to see the first issue?

Click to continue reading Q&A: MARC BERNARDIN on Monster Attack Network and Genius