Gear Live Comic Book News: Articles Tagged Steve Holland

Weekend Reading: Frazetta, Viz, Carl Barks and Facebook

You know it’s going to be a bad week when one of the most beloved fantasy artists passes away. He was absolutely one of my favorite artists and one of the first artists who, like Jack Kirby, could get me to buy pretty much anything with his name on it.

Tom Spurgeon has an excellent overview of the late artist’s career. “Frazetta’s art on the Warren Magazines Creepy, Eerie and eventually Vampirella combined some of the pulp tendencies for which he was soon to become very well known with a sense of classic horror. They remain some of the company’s most iconic pieces of art.”

Viz Media: I often post job listings here for Viz Media, the longtime manga publisher in San Francisco – longtime as in they’ve been doing it since it wasn’t quite so cool to do it. So I was saddened to hear that they let go more than 50 of their staffers. That’s, I think, the largest layoff of comics professionals that I can remember and certainly the largest in recent years. I hate to see that kind of thing happen, and I wish everyone the best as they figure out what to do next. Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat recently posted this link from Dan Blank’s website; I’ve practically memorized it.

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Weekend Reading: Paul Levitz, David Small, Gus Grimly, and Alan Grant!

So, anything weird happen this week? Oh that! As you well know, Paul Levitz has stepped down from DC Comics, the company’s now called DC Entertainment and Paul’s going to be writing comics again. You don’t need me to link to any of that, it’s all over the news. But my favorite bit of speculation comes from Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool. He ponders the future of the direct market now that one of its major champions - and strong retailer advocates - has stepped down.

David Small: My old pal Tom Heintjes is the editor and guiding hand behind Hogan’s Alley, one of the best magazines about comics published today. In between issues, he regularly posts content on the internet and sends out email newsletters to subscribers. The latest newsletter has a terrific interview with David Small discussing his graphic novel Stitches.

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