Comic Con International: 2012

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics,

Comic Con International has come and gone already. Naturally, my Comic Con experience is quite a bit different from most people. I’ve been going for quite a while, have a lot of friends and acquaintances that I see there, and have an established routine of places to be at certain times.

I got there too late on Wednesday for what some reported was a raucous Preview Night, so my convention didn’t start until Thursday morning.

Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has a rundown of convention memories from around the internet. (And congratulations to Tom for his Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Journalism. It’s well-deserved.

Click to continue reading Comic Con International: 2012

Boom! Goes! Kaboom!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent,

So far, so good. Following the loss of its Pixar titles, Boom! Kids has rebranded itself as Kaboom! and outlined a number of its upcoming titles in a series of tease posts on the internet in the past week or so.

The curent line-up will feature Word Girl, based on the PBS animated series (newsstand readers and iPad owners will love this), a new Roger Langridge series called Snarked, a Star Wars parody (always a good bet) called Space Warped (which is a translated French series that someone will go in and rework all the French-specific jokes to tap into US nerd culture.

Best of all is a new Peanuts project that had keyboards smoking as the legion of armchair detectives tried to guess what it was: New? Reprints? Ultimate Peanuts by Mark Millar, oh please, internet, tell me!

Turns out it’s a new adaptation of a new Peanuts animated movie called Happiness Is A Warm Blanket Charlie Brown, which Warners Home video will release this month.

Click to continue reading Boom! Goes! Kaboom!

SNEAK PREVIEW: Pixar’s CARS and The Origin of Lightning McQueen

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Rev it up for the origin of Lightning McQueen! Pixar’s CARS was such a huge hit for the studio that it’s spawned a sequel, due in 2012. If you and your kids don’t want to wait that long, BOOM! Studios has something to satisfy fans of the Dinoco 400 until then. In conjunction with Disney Worldwide Publishing, BOOM! is launching a brand new licensed CARS comic book. Written by Alan J. Porter and illustrated by Albert Carreres, the first issue of CARS: THE ROOKIE will debut in March 2009. In the debut issue, CARS Star Lightning McQueen gets interviewed by Darrel Cartrip and reveals his less-than-humble origins as “Bulldozer” McQueen, “a local short track racer who dreams of the big time.” If you’re looking for something your kids can hook into, this is the comic to seek out. You can order it from your local comic book store (the BOOM! folks have a handy order form you can hand to your retailer), and you can also order it from the BOOM! website.

BOOM! is also releasing THE INCREDIBLES: FAMILY MATTERS #1 (by Mark Waid and Marcio Takara) and THE MUPPET SHOW #1 (by Roger Langridge) in March as well. Don’t let this opportunity slip by to get kids into reading comics.