---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Dukeshire and Mike Imboden Present: THE COMIC BOOK NET ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE ISSUE NUMBER 295 1999 EAGLE AWARD NOMINEE 12/15/2000 Edited by: David LeBlanc - ComicBkNet@aol.com FREE VIA EMAIL SINCE FEBRUARY 1995 ______________________________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [A] Submissions, mailing address, web page [1] On the Net ............................ David LeBlanc [2] Letters to the Editor ................. Your Page! [3] TRIVIA CONTEST ........................ Win *real* prizes! [4] Network Buzz .......................... News, gossip & rumors [5] Interview:Rachel Hartman .............. Tim O'Shea [6] Interview:Ryan Crouse ................. Paul Dale Roberts [7] Comic Culture Shrapnel ................ Kris Naudus [8] Some Pages, A Cover, and A Few Staples. Marlan Harris [9] Sound And Fury ........................ Craig Lemon [10] M.O.E. Reviews ........................ Paul Dale Roberts [11] My View: RACEWARRIOR .................. David LeBlanc [12] New Comic Book Releases List .......... Charles LePage [13] HYPE! Section ......................... Various ______________________________________________________________________ World Wide Web Home Page-->> http://members.aol.com/ComicBkNet Mailed by Egroups: http://www.egroups.com/group/ComicBookNetworkEmag HTML WEB EDITION at -->> http://www.digitalwebbing.com/cbem featuring a week's worth of the online strips: Steve Conley's ASTOUNDING SPACE THRILLS AND DR. CYBORG by Alan Gross & Mike Oeming ----------------------------------------------------------------------- o \o/ _ o _| \ / |_ o_ \o/ o /|\ | /\ _\o \o | o/ O/_ /\ | /|\ / \ / \ |\ /) | ( \ /o\ / ) | (\ / | / \ / \ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The ComicBook Network was founded by Ed Dukeshire and Mike Imboden ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If you wish to receive each issue automatically through your Email account, FREE, please send a message FROM that account TO: ComicBookNetworkEmag-subscribe@egroups.com To UNSUBSCRIBE send a message FROM the account to be dropped to: ComicBookNetworkEmag-unsubscribe@egroups.com See section [A] for the address to mail material to be reviewed. ______________________________________________________________________ All text contained within is copyrighted to the originating author(s). Except where elsewhere noted, The Comic Book Net Electronic Magazine is Copyright 2000 by The ComicBook Network. You may freely distribute or retransmit this file intact without alteration for noncommercial purposes only. Except for personal archiving, permission must be obtained from the individual authors to reproduce, retransmit, or publish any part of this magazine. Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Editor, the Network Administration Team or the members and users of The ComicBook Network. ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [A] E-Mag Info: Submissions, Back Issues, Web Page SUBMISSIONS ----------- To submit an article, review, column, etc. to our Emag, simply Email it to the editor at: ComicBkNet@aol.com You must include your REAL name and a valid Email address in order to be published in this Emag. Sorry, we do not accept anonymous columns. Reviews of mainstream books are welcome and we encourage reviews of indies and self published material as we feel that material deserves more exposure to the general public. If you write intelligent, coherent, and timely reviews of anything it will almost always be printed so give us a shot. Commentary on the state of the industry, and personal observations and reflections related to comics are *most* likely to be included in our publication. PLEASE, no material on Gaming, role playing, collectible card games or other hobbies or collectibles other than comic books. That does not include plugs for web pages UNLESS they are concerned with print comic books. We do not promote web comics as we do not consider them to be comic books. SEND US YOUR WORK ----------------- We also accept product for review purposes. Advanced copies of comic books will not be returned but anything sent to us *will* be reviewed in the ComicBook Net Emag. Send all material to: David L. LeBlanc 84 Heather Circle Jefferson, MA 01522-1419 Material is generally reviewed in the order received and be advised that we work a few weeks in advance so your review may not be in the magazine immediately. Advanced copies are therefore encouraged so the review will occur prior to your product hitting the stores. THE Comic Book Net WEB PAGE http://members.aol.com/ComicBkNet ---------------- If you have access to the World Wide Web, please stop by and visit our web page! On our web page, you can find the latest issue of our E-Mag, as well as all back issues and an annotated index. You'll also find important information and other neat features like links to the HTML version of the current issue of this magazine at DIGITAL WEBBING, [http://www.digitalwebbing.com/cbem], some of the comic companies and creators' web pages and many other Comic Book related links! You can also find some back issues at America Online, by going to Keyword: COMICS, then choose the menu item _Comic Book Forum_ and then going to the _Comics Library_ from there. These are non-zipped text files. ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] On the Net David LeBlanc Final Election Update . . . The King is dead. Long live the King. *** Well, I have been hinting at this being a special issue the last couple of weeks and it is for me. Back in February of 1996 I inherited the reins of this publication in a bloodless coup. My tenure began on the 19th with issue #46. Thus, this issue is my 250th. It is hard to believe nearly 5 years have gone by since then. I won't go into the details or highlights of those years - I usually touch on that in the annual anniversary in February. As much as we often make fun of the old tried and true gimmick of the comic publishers when the numbering reaches an even multiple of 25, I am pleased that I have reached this landmark and the publication is now only 5 issues away from another divisible-by-25 landmark; Issue Number 300! When the guys at That's Entertainment asked if they could sponsor the Trivia Contest for our next "special" occasion, I knew it would be this one as it is a personal achievement I am proud to share. Skip to the TRIVIA section to see what they donated. That's Entertainment, the Eisner "Spirit of the Industry" award winning store where I shop in Worcester, MA, has been with us since nearly the beginning always willing to help promote comics by supporting the Emag. One of the fondest memories I will always treasure about this publication and Paul Howley and the crew at TE was our joint effort to raise funds for a local child stricken with an always fatal condition. Turning the magic of the love many have for the 4-color medium into a real life magic day for a brave little boy and his family re-affirmed my faith in the generosity of my fellow fans. We are not all nerds without lives and bad hygiene. That one event, and a few others that go beyond what we do here each week, give special meaning to the effort and in a small way help spread the image of the good comics and comics fans are capable of doing. The other major benefit is the wonderful variety of people I get to correspond with, from old friends from the early days like Chris Oarr, Ed Dukeshire and Mike Imboden; to a wide range of columnists from literally the four corners of the globe; to pros in the business side at major and small publishers - administrative and creative alike; to the distribution people, other retailers and 1200 or so regular readers. Each week brings a new contact like the folks at Custom Comics featured in this weeks review column, MY VIEW. Free comics is a GREAT benefit of this job as is first look at some terrific stuff - some that made it others that faded away. I am grateful for it all and my collection is much richer because of it. So join me next week as I begin the next 250 issues with our annual Christmas issue. And before you do get some of these at your local store: CROSSGEN COMICS Sigil #7, 2.95 DARK HORSE COMICS Akira Vol 1 TPB, 24.95 DC COMICS Batman Beyond The Return Of The Joker, 2.95 <- Pick of the Week! IMAGE COMICS Age Of Bronze #9, 3.50 Midnight Nation #4, 2.50 INSIGHT STUDIOS GROUP Liberty Meadows #17, 2.95 MARVEL COMICS Spidey A Universe X Special, 3.99 I hope everyone who has TVLand on their cable system or dish had the chance to catch some of the ADVENTURES of SUPERMAN marathon last weekend. I saw a few and it really brought back the thrill I had as a kid, waiting for the next episode. Forget how much better the production values are these days. This was classic 50's TV and in a child's mind it was the greatest thing ever. David LeBlanc - ComicBkNet@aol.com Editor The Comic Book Net Electronic Magazine ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [2] Letters to the Editor If you want to comment on this or any previous issue, want to offer something for us to publish, or just want to shamelessly suck up to the editor to try and get your name in print send Email to: ComicBkNet@aol.com Note: Letters of comment may be used in future issues of CBEM unless you specifically request us NOT to use them. Your Email address and/or name will be withheld upon request. +++++ In an eerie coincidence, this issue, like my first, had NO letters to the editor! ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [3] [TRIVIA CONTEST] **THE FIRST PLACE TO FIND THE EMAG EACH WEEK IS ON OUR HOME PAGE!** IF YOU ARE DESPERATE TO WIN THE TRIVIA, GO THERE FIRST ON FRIDAY NIGHT http://members.aol.com/ComicBkNet QUESTION OF THE WEEK Prizes donated by Discount Comic Book Service at www.dcbservice.com where you can order most DC, Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse comics, statues and retail products for 35% off. +Submit your own trivia and win the CHEEZY PRIZE(tm) if you can stump+ +the readers! You MUST submit the correct answer with your question.+ LAST ISSUE'S QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What Issue #1 comic, about a dog and cat, was polybagged to preserve a unique "smelly" gimmick Of course it was Marvel's REN & STIMPY adaptation that had the air fouler enclosed in the bag. Kent Lorenz receives Batman: Knightfall Part 3: Knightsend from our sponsor, Discount Comic Book Service. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In honor of this being your humble editor's 250th anniversary issue, THIS WEEK's PRIZE is a first edition FROM HELL trade paperback from THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, of Worcester, MA. BUT if you don't win, they will sell you a copy for $35 and THEY will pay the shipping charges anywhere in the US. Just send Email to Thatse@thatse.com for details on how to buy it. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THIS WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION: What comic, in 1993, modeled the eight major characters on real people chosen by a contest? IMPORTANT RULES NOTICE The first correct answer to reach the editor wins the CHEEZY PRIZE(tm). The editor will be the sole judge as to which guess arrived first! Messages with more than one guess will be disqualified. LIMIT: ONE PRIZE PER MONTH PER PERSON! ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [4] Network Buzz News, gossip and rumors from around the industry THE COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND - www.cbldf.org CHRIS OARR DEPARTS COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND CHRIS OARR has announced that he is resigning as executive director of the COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND. Oarr steered the CBLDF, a non-profit organization protecting First Amendment rights in the comics industry, for more than three years. "It's been great working for such an important cause," said Oarr. "And I feel like we've accomplished a lot. The Fund will continue to stand ready to provide the highest quality legal advice and service to the comics community. I'll always remain one of the CBLDF's most ardent supporters." During his tenure as executive director, Oarr was responsible for increasing the Fund's profile both inside and outside the comics industry. He was the driving force behind such innovative fund-raising ventures as the CBLDF "Making Waves" Cruise, and coordinated two of author NEIL GAIMAN's most successful Guardian Angel Tours in support of the Fund. Oarr also inaugurated the CBLDF's Membership Program, which currently brings the Fund annual support from more than 2,500 comics fans and professionals. While the CBLDF's caseload was thankfully light during Oarr's time with the organization, he did coordinate the defense of comics retailers in trials in West Virginia and Texas. The Fund has also increased its ability to act quickly and decisively, and in the last three years was able to resolve dozens of censorship incidents successfully before charges were ever filed. Oarr's fund raising efforts also enabled the CBLDF to pay all outstanding legal debts from previous cases. "Chris brought tremendous energy and enthusiasm to the Fund," said CBLDF president DENIS KITCHEN, "not to mention a genuine love of comics. He's succeeded in involving and uniting people from all parts of the comics community in support of the industry's rights." CHRIS BLEISTEIN, who was the Fund's deputy director throughout Oarr's tenure, will remain with the CBLDF. Bleistein will serve as acting director pending further decision from the CBLDF's board of directors. "I could only consider leaving now," said Oarr, "knowing that the Fund is on solid footing and in the good hands of Chris Bleistein." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization protecting First Amendment rights in the comics community. Donations and inquiries should be directed to the CBLDF at P.O. Box 693, Northampton, MA 01061. For more CBLDF news and information, pick up a copy of "Busted!," the Fund's free quarterly newsletter, or visit the CBLDF web-site at http://www.cbldf.org. For additional information please contact Chris Bleistein at (413) 586-6967 or cbleistein@cbldf.org +++++ The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund - www.cbldf.org SECOND CHARGE AGAINST TEXAS RETAILER DISMISSED The COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND has succeeded IN having one of two charges dismissed in a case brought against a Texas comics retailer. The store manager was indicted on two counts of promoting obscenity for selling adult manga (Japanese comics) to adults. The non-profit CBLDF is coordinating and funding the defense of this retailer's First Amendment rights, and to date has spent more than $25,000 on this case alone. The two comics in question, "Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen" #2 and "Legend of the Overfiend" #1, are both adaptations of Japan's hugely popular "Legend of the Overfiend" series of anime films. Like the films, the comics are clearly intended for an adult audience, and are labeled "absolutely not for children" on the covers. At this comic shop, they were racked in an "18 and Over" section that also included "Sin City," "Preacher," "Spawn," and all of DC's "Vertigo" titles. No one alleged that these comics were displayed to children, or that the manager was negligent in verifying the age of the undercover police officer and PTA member who purchased them. Instead, the prosecutors claimed that the material is obscene. In order to be judged obscene, a work as a whole must appeal to the prurient interest and lack any artistic, literary, or scientific value. Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, and it is illegal for adults to create, promote, sell, or purchase obscene material. These two charges -- both of which carry two- year jail sentences and $4,000 fines -- were to be tried separately. "We're not talking about a prudish city here," said CBLDF executive director CHRIS OARR. "You can't drive two miles without passing an adult bookstore. But a local PTA member was so shocked by what he saw in the adult section of this comic shop that he called his city council woman, who called the district attorney, who called the police. And when the DA's office was not quick to act, the council woman applied more pressure. Thanks to her, the clerk was arrested in his store on new comics day." The first charge was tried before a jury in September. The CBLDF hired one of the leading legal teams in Dallas. For the trial, the Fund also brought in SCOTT McCLOUD, author of "Understanding Comics," to testify as an expert on the medium. DR. SUSAN NAPIER, a professor from the University of Texas, also gave expert testimony on anime and Japanese pop culture. These witnesses demonstrated that not only were these comics well within contemporary community standards, but that they also had serious artistic value. Ignoring this expert testimony, the jury was quick to return a guilty verdict and convict the store manager of promoting obscenity. The CBLDF legal team immediately filed its intention to appeal this verdict on the first charge. Perhaps the most compelling of the several issues that will be brought to appeal was the jury's failure to apply a national standard to the question of the material's artistic and literary merit. The Supreme Court has held that the standard for establishing artistic value is not a local one but national. Furthermore, the high court has stated that a national standard of artistic worth is best determined by experts. Jurors must be guided by expert testimony when it is given. When experts disagree, the jury must decide between them. But in the absence of conflicting testimony, the jury may not disregard the testimony of experts. In other words, they cannot substitute their own views on artistic merit for the evidence presented in court. The prosecution presented no witnesses to contradict McCloud and Napier's assertion that the comic has artistic merit. Therefore, as a matter of law, the jury could not find "Demon Beast Invasion: The Fallen" #2 obscene. And yet that is what they did. In essence, they could not accept the notion that comics are indeed art, and they are not always intended for children. The judge failed to instruct the jury about this national standard, and for that reason alone the defense should prevail on appeal. "That conviction was still only for the first charge," explained Oarr. "In preparing for the trial for the second charge, we redoubled our efforts. This time, we subpoenaed information from the offices of the mayor, the city council, and the DA. We were ready to prove that this entire case was politically motivated. And suddenly the DA dropped the second charge. Sometimes that's what it takes." "This is just the sort of case the CBLDF was founded to deal with," said CBLDF president and founder DENIS KITCHEN. "Thanks to the support of comics fans and professionals across the country, the CBLDF was able to act fast and commit thousands of dollars to the defense of this retailer's rights. It's a significant victory that Texas has backed down on the second charge, and we have high hopes that reason will prevail at the appeal." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization protecting First Amendment rights in the comics community. Donations and inquiries should be directed to the CBLDF at P.O. Box 693, Northampton, MA 01061. For more CBLDF news and information, pick up a copy of "Busted!," the Fund's free quarterly newsletter, or visit the CBLDF web-site at http://www.cbldf.org. For additional information please contact Chris Bleistein at (413) 586-6967 or cbleistein@cbldf.org +++++ Alternative Press Expo c/o Comic-Con International P.O. Box 128458 San Diego, CA 92115 619-414-1020 ALTERNATIVE COMICS ARTISTS AND PUBLISHERS RETURN TO SAN FRANCISCO FOR TWO DAY EVENT SAN FRANCISCO- The Alternative Press Expo, or APE as it is more commonly known, makes its triumphant return to San Francisco for a big two-day show on February 17 and 18, 2001. Located at Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center, APE overlooks the beautiful San Francisco Bay. "Last year's show was very successful and there was a great deal of interest in expanding the show from one to two days." says David Glanzer, spokesperson for the nonprofit event. Originally held in San Jose, California, APE moved to San Francisco for the 2000 event which saw an increase in participation from artists and publishers and brought the one day total of attendees to 1,500. APE 2001 promises to be one of the largest gatherings of alternative and self-published comic books, fanzines and books in the United States. Created by Dan Vado of Slave Labor Graphics as a way of showcasing small press and alternative comics and publications, APE has been operating under the auspices of Comic-Con International (Comic- Con) for over five years. Comic-Con, a non-profit educational organization, is dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture. Comic-Con regards APE as a perfect venue to fulfill this mission. As a gathering of sometimes new, sometimes award-winning, and always exciting creators and publishers, APE is a celebration of the independent spirit that keeps comics new, fresh and innovative. Among the special guests scheduled to attend the February show is TERRY MOORE, creator/writer/artist of Strangers In Paradise, one of the most popular self-published comic books. Terry makes a rare Bay area convention appearance at APE. JUDD WINICK, the popular cartoonist behind Pedro and Me and The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius (and writer of DC's Green Lantern) also joins APE as a special guest. Judd may best be remembered as one of the house guests on MTV's The Real World: San Francisco. In addition to a variety of guests and publishers, APE also offers programming on a variety of topics related to independent and self published comics. Programming highlights include spotlights on both special guests Moore and Winick, a look at comics created specifically for the internet, a slide show featuring the work of cartoonist Peter Kuper, a look at self-publishing with some of the more successful creators working today, and a round-table discussion on the state of the independent industry, featuring the top alternative comics publishers. A complete list of APE exhibitors (as of Dec. 12, 2000) includes: AARDBART AND SON PRESS; ABSTRACT STUDIO (Terry Moore); ALTERNATIVE COMICS (Jeff Mason, Graham Annable, Sam Henderson); ASTONISH COMICS (Mike Kunkel, Jason Lethcoe); BLACK SWAN PRESS (Richard Becker); BLACK VELVET STUDIOS (Eric Canete, Byron Penaranda, Axel Ortiz, Geoff Ong); BOX OFFICE POISON (Alex Robinson, Tony Consiglio); BRAINO COMIX / BURNING HEAD PRESS (Trevor Alixopulos, Cory Thrall); THE CARBON BASED MISTAKE (Marc Calvary); CATMULL AND WILLIAMS (Ben Catmull, Dylan Williams, Adam Jones, Tom Walsh); CITY LIGHTS BOOKS (Stacey Lewis, Yolanda Montijo); COLONIA PRESS (Jeff Nicholson, Adarro, "The Old Man- of-Fish"); COMICS CONSPIRACY (Doug Miers, Valerie Miers, Ken Fetty, Joe Cool); CRAZYFISH (Scott Morse, Jim Mahfood, Troy Nixey, Mike Huddleston, Kelley Seda); DRAWN AND QUARTERLY (Chris Oliveros, Adrian Tomine, Jason Lutes, Ed Brubaker, Joe Matt); EMPTY LIFE (Vladamir Sock Monkey); EXHIBIT A PRESS (Batton Lash, Jackie Estrada); E-Z CHEESE COMICS (Jon Wayshak, Thien Pham, Lea Ballard, Paul Harmon); FANTAGRAPHICS (Jim Blanchard, Mary Fleener, Johnny Ryan, Richard Sala, Steven Weissman, J.R. Williams); FINGERPRINT STUDIOS (Larry Brown); FLASH PUBLICATIONS; FOGELCOMIX / LCD (Dan Fogel, Kieron Dwyer, Guy Colwell, Paul Mavrides, Hal Robins, Steve Moore, Roger May, Rick Remender, John Heebink, S.S. Crompton); HEADLESS SHAKESPEARE PRESS (Craig McKinney); HIGHWATER BOOKS / RED INK (Jordan Crane, Ron Rege, Brian Ralph, Greg Cook, Matt Madden, Tom Devlin, Megan Kelso); HUNGRY TIGER PRESS (Eric Shanower, David Maxine); JAVA TURTLE (Lynne Lowe); KIWI STUDIOS (Jon "Bean" Hastings); KEITH KNIGHT (Keith Knight, Jeff Kramer); STEVE LAFLER / PERMANENT SWIM PRESS (Steve Lafler, Serena Makofsky, Jenny Makofsky, Jeff Roysdon); LEE'S COMICS; STEVE LEIALOHA; STEVE LIEBER; LOS COMEX( Michael Aushenker); MANIC D PRESS (Jennifer Joseph, Jon Longhi); MUSEUM OF LOST WONDER (Jeff Hoke, Clint Marsh, Nick Mullins); ONI PRESS (Chynna Clugston-Major, Scott Morse, Mike Huddleston, Jamie S. Rich); ORIGINAL SYNDICATE PRESS; PHANTOMB PUBLISHING; PLASTIC PLANET; TONY RAIOLA BOOKS; RE-IMAGINING COMIC ART (Greg Beda, Derek Beda); RE/Search PUBLICATIONS (V. Vale, A. Richmond); TRINA ROBBINS; ROOSTER PRESS (David Hedgecock); SHADES OF GREEN (Tracy Held); SHORTWAVE PRODUCTIONS (Garret Izumi); SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS (Dan Vado, Jhonen Vasquez, Roman Dirge, Tommy Kovac, David Hahn, Serena Valentino, John Gebbia); SPIDRIC (Gordon Sutton, Leigh Dragoon); SPIRAL BOUND PRESS (Tyler Cohen); SQUID WORKS (Stan Yan, Lonnie Allen, Andy Glass); STICKMAN GRAPHICS (Kevin Tinsley); SYNDICATE PUBLISHING (Matthew Pasteris, Tait Bergstrom, Billy K, Marc Calvary); TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS (Chris Staros, Brett Warnock, Peter Kuper, Craig Thompson, Dean Haspiel, Scott Mills, Steve Lafler, Alex Robinson); TROUBLETOWN (Lloyd Dangle); and SHANNON WHEELER (Too Much Coffee Man). APE admission is $6.00 for one day, $10.00 for both days, available only at the door. APE hours are Saturday, Feb. 17: Noon-6PM and Sunday, Feb. 18: 11AM-5PM. Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center is easily accessible via municipal transit lines. More companies and names will be added as the February event date approaches. Visit the official APE and Comic-Con website at www.comic- con.org for further details. +++++ CCGR Announces the Premiere of Its Scrolls Fantastique Product Line DOYLESTOWN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 14, 2000--Collectible Concepts Group Inc. (OTC:CCGR), a leading marketer of collectibles in the entertainment, music and sports categories, is launching a new product in the collectibles industry called "Scrolls Fantastique(TM)." Capitalizing on a hot pop culture item, wall scrolls are artistically printed fabric wall hangings. CCGR will be producing limited edition collectible wall scrolls featuring the fine art paintings of Boris and Julie, characters from the Marvel Universe, and Stan Lee Media. "To develop a truly collectible wall scroll we knew we needed to combine great images with a high quality material," said Lyn Lonker, Director of Product Design for Collectible Concepts Group. "The images we selected have never been produced in this medium before." Each image will be digitally mastered for maximum clarity using advanced computer analysis. Our research showed us that fans and collectors liked the idea of the wall scroll because it offers the flexibility of just rolling it up to be stored. Paper posters often get damaged when they are rolled up. The first series of scrolls will feature the fantasy art from the "Master's Touch" collection of Boris and Julie. The scrolls will carry a suggested retail price of $29.95 and are expected to begin shipping no later than January 2001 More About Collectible Concepts Group, Inc. Headquartered in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Collectible Concepts Group, Inc., develops and markets licensed collectible merchandise in the entertainment and sports industries. The X-Men Collector's Club, www.x-menclub.com, features a variety of X-Men products under license from Marvel Enterprises Inc. (NYSE:MVL). CCGR is an official licensee of New Line Productions, Inc., and produces replicas of props for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and the sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me as well as the creation and management of The Official Austin Powers Collector's Club website at www.powersclub.com. CCGR is also creating collectible merchandise for the Terminator and Terminator 2 motion pictures and is currently building the Official Terminator Collector's Club at www.terminatorclub.com. For baseball fans and collectors, CCGR recently launched www.collectbaseball.com, which features authentic baseball memorabilia and www.collectmusicart.com featuring Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen music art and memorabilia. CCGR stock quotes are available from www.bloomberg.com. +++++ From the SPLASH PAGE of Comicon.com at: http://www.comicon.com/splash/ MARVEL PULPS MILGROM! 'UNIVERSE X' PRINT RUN DESTROYED, ARTIST FIRED! December 11: Since the story first broke on Rich Johnston's ALL THE RAGE column last week, comic book message boards across the Internet have been hopping with comments and quotes pertaining to the latest pulping incident to hit a big time comic book company. This one has had repercussions beyond the usual cost of reprinting, with remedial action taken against an artist who inked a subliminal message into the background of a comic book panel.The current controversy began when someone in Marvel editorial noticed a background image in the latest issue of Universe X Special, which showed a bookshelf full of books with the titles bearing the message "Harras, ha ha, he's gone! Good riddance to bad rubbish, he was a nasty S.O.B.". The message is a reference to the recent firing of Bob Harras from the company's Editor In Chief position. The complete print run was ordered pulped and reprinted, but not before some copies had been given to retailers as part of the First Look distribution plan.The book had been inked by Marvel veteran Al Milgrom, who acknowledged adding the graphitti message and who was summarily fired from his position as contract employee. Marvel Editor In Chief, Joe Quesada, said: "Although I really don't want to get into the sordid ridiculous details of this thing, let me make one thing clear, Al can still work at Marvel. That was the compromise that I, along with Bill J's help, came to with the guys upstairs. He was a contract employee, what he did violated that contract so he was terminated. Now just because Al no longer has a contract with Marvel does not mean he cannot freelance. I went down editors row and informed all of my editors of this and all are aware that Al is still welcomed to ink for Marvel. What happened really sucked on a multitude of different levels so I guess that's why I would rather put it behind us."But over on the P. Craig Russell message board, Craig Russell posted that Milgrom was saying Marvel intended to take the cost of reprinting the issue out of his freelance pay. Russell said: "Well, I talked to Al Milgrom today. Called him this afternoon and he confirmed pretty much of what has been reported on this board with one VERY interesting addition. His little bit of Graphitti was caught BEFORE publication of the book and after profuse Mea Culpas was sent to production to be corrected according to Al. Call it the perversities of the computer age where once something is put on disc it seems to take on a life of its own but due to an unnamed person in the creative hierarchy who preferred the original coloring (apparently some coloring changes were made in addition to the corrections) the first disc was sent out instead. Anyway, once the book was printed it gave a perfect excuse to those in power to terminate Al's contract without having to give him his severance pay which would have been in the tens of thousands. This at a time when he's got a kid going off to college and as he said 'I have more expenses than I've ever had in my life and I'm making less money than ever before'." The capper is he says Marvel has told him he can freelance for them with a percentage taken out to pay for the cost of pulping the book. I guess this means if I do a book for them and print giant profanities all over it and they're foolish and incompetent enough to print it, knowing its undistributable, I'm responsible for their expenses. Oy! As Al kept repeating, it was a stupid thing to do and the regrets are constant but it seems so typical of corporate power to want to really stick it to someone who is not entirely responsible for the screw up. Al says he has known for some time that he was on the way out and this was the perfect out for Marvel. The added irony is that for 30 years he has filled the function of the 'good soldier', a man who could be called on to ink a book in a weekend or eight pages overnight when someone else missed their deadlines."Copies of the unpulped issue immediately went up on e-bay, with bids hitting in the thirty-five dollar range today. Some long-time Marvel watchers are wondering, with Harras and Claremont recently walking the plank, if Milgrom's heavy handed firing could be part of a larger strategy to clean house of the old guard creators and editors. Developing. +++++ From Rich Johnston's ALL THE RAGE Gossip Column at: http://www.SilverBulletComicBooks.com. Miracles, Millar and Milgrom Whatever Happened To Miracleman? It's one for the FAQs... and its an issue that Dez Skinn, original publisher of the Alan Moore revamped version in Warrior Magazine, is going to address. Skinn publishes Comics International, a long running trade magazine for the comics industry. Its rumour column inspired me to be the rumour monger I now am, and I originated the Networks column that still runs in Comics International today. So what does Dez have to say about the next issue? "Here's the rundown on our year-ending extravaganza... with double the usual interior colour pages (36 out of 76 total): "Mark Buckingham has given us the OK to publish pages of his (and Neil Gaiman's) unpublished Miracleman - completely finished when Eclipse pulled the plug." (See examples of these in a recent Silver Bullet Interview). "We'll also be featuring Marvelman art by Steve Dillon, Alan Davis and Paul Neary (never reprinted, thus never seen since 1982's Warrior Summer Special!) with its fascinating glimpse into MM's future, back when we had a different path planned (with the Warpsmiths et al), scripted by Alan Moore." "Plus an MM fact file with interesting (and previously unrevealed) stories about why the strip ceased in Warrior (no, it had nothing to do with Marvel), why neither DC nor Marvel wanted the story for the US, what happened with Eclipse, who owns it (!) plus lots more -- and why we all compare it to the Superman TV series when talking about "The curse of Marvelman"." Goodtiming as well... with Todd MacFarlane issuing a Spawn/Miracleman poster by Ashley Wood and himself and used for the cover of this very special issue of Comics International, it's time when everyone with an interest in the character should start staking their claim. I hear that Todd McFarlane Productions claim they own 85 percent of the rights, with Neil Gaiman on15 percent. As it stands, this means TMP believe they own the rights to publish Miracleman as a comic - including past issues, which directly contradicts received wisdom from other involved parties. The rumour continues, stating that the film of the original stories was bought at the same auction where Todd bought the rights to Eclipse by a small Canadian publisher. This publisher is insisting that Todd must buy the film from them, and there's a standstill in the negotiation. This is particularly interesting to me, because previously, this is where I believe the ownership of the character to lie... Writing copyright and artistic copyright of published issues jointly owned by the writer, artists and original publisher. Alan Davis sold his 1/3 interest in the character to Eclipse. Skinn sold his 1/3 to Eclipse. Eclipse bought by Todd McFarlane. Alan Moore gave his 1/3 to Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman split this between himself and Mark Buckingham. Later, Mark sold this back to Neil. The questions are... what did Eclipse own? Did any rights revert back to Skinn? How did Skinn acquire the rights to Marvelman originally? What claim does the estate of Marvelman creator Mick Anglo have? I'm looking forward to these and more questions being resolved. To get your copy of this very special issue of Comics International, it's issue 128 and the Diamond order code is: 20001244429-00 with #128 shipping in December. Your retailer will be able to make an Advance Reorder on the issue. Supplies are, naturally, limited but UK shops are seeing an overship for this issue, up to 50% of initial orders. Those of you with incompetent retailers or distributors can also order single copies: UK: £1.75 (1st class) £1.50 (2nd class) Europe & Eire: £2.00 (airmail only) USA & Canada: $5.00 US (air); $3.50 (sea) Australasia/Asia: £3.50 (air); £2 (sea) Send the correct amount to: Comics International 8 Trinity Road London N2 8JJ ENGLAND This Has A Rumour Value Of 7 Out Of 10 Man Of Words A source tells me "A little bird tells me that Mark Millar's new job at Marvel, which Warren Ellis has said is 'not what people are expecting', might be something to do with novelisations. Possibly as editor of a Marvel novelline." This could be a confusion due to a more solid rumour that the Ultimate line is being novelized and Millar may an involvement with that.But then again, he could be the chap in charge. If it's true, you read it here first. If not, you saw it on Newsarama. This Has A Rumour Value Of 4 Out Of 10 Homeless: Will Work For Visas Mark Millar sent a note to the pro-community telling everyone that he and Frank Quitely were off to the USA, house hunting. They're looking round California, popping in to the Wildstorm offices, then nipping off to New York to meet the Marvel guys before coming home later next week. Both are moving to the USA full-time, so if any unscrupulous real estate dealers in California are reading, there's a couple of green Scots fellows just waiting for you to take their money off them... This Has A Rumour Value Of 9 Out Of 10 Round Robin At Dixonverse, the fans there voted that there should be more stories with the Jason Todd version of Robin, and less of the emphasis on Dick Grayson. Chuck Dixon replied "I concur. There is a deep "inside" reason why we don't see more Jason Todd stories. But that will probably change in coming months." Speculation arose that this could be due to Denny O'Neill leaving the Batbooks, since Denny was responsible for Jason's death in the first place. This Has A Rumour Value Of 6 Out Of 10 Pulped Friction After the Mad Marvel Pulpers story and subsequent firing of Al Milgrom, first reported by this column, was reprinted on P. Craig Russell's Message Board (without a decent rumour warning first... I'm a little peeved about that),Russell had his own comment to make. This has already been posted on a number of message boards, but it could do with a good airing here. He says"Well, I talked to Al Milgrom today. Called him this afternoon and he confirmed pretty much of what has been reported on this board with one VERY interesting addition. His little bit of Graphitti was caught BEFORE publication of the book and after profuse Mea Culpas was sent to production to be corrected according to Al. Call it the perversities of the computer age where once something is put on disc it seems to take on a life of its own but due to an unnamed person in the creative hierarchy who preferred the original coloring(apparently some coloring changes were made in addition to the corrections)the first disc was sent out instead. It's all about communication, as I recently found out when I had a Valkyrie cover recolored but the original got printed instead due to a screw up I gave up on figuring out (many fingers were pointed).Anyway, once the book was printed it gave a perfect excuse to those in power to terminate Al's contract without having to give him his severance pay which would have been in the tens of thousands. This at a time when he's got a kid going off to college and as he said 'I have more expenses than I've ever had in my life and I'm making less money than ever before'." "The capper is he says Marvel has told him he can freelance for them with a percentage taken out to pay for the cost of pulping the book. I guess this means if I do a book for them and print giant profanities all over it and they're foolish and incompetent enough to print it, knowing its undistributable, I'm responsible for their expenses. Oy! As Al kept repeating, it was a stupid thing to do and the regrets are constant but it seems so typical of corporate power to want to really stick it to someone who is not entirely responsible for the screw up. Al says he has known for some time that he was on the way out and this was the perfect out for Marvel. The added irony is that for30 years he has filled the function of the 'good soldier', a man who could be called on to ink a book in a weekend or eight pages overnight when someone else missed their deadlines." "The reputation for being a hack that has resulted (you try inking 8 pages overnight and see how good you look)belies his ability to do really sensitive inking when given quality pencils and the same time frame as anyone else. I remember several pages he inked of Mike Kaluta's pencils and how excellent they were. I told him so at the time and he said "Hey, thanks, people have been coming up to me at Marvel all week and saying the same thing...I just wish they wouldn't sound so surprised". Glenn Barbis who posted Russell's response on a number of boards, also reposted a response from Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, who replied "Hey, folks, although I really don't want to get into the sordid ridiculous details of this thing, let me make one thing clear, Al can still work at Marvel. That was the compromise that I, along with Bill J's help, came to with the guys upstairs. He was a contract employee, what he did violated that contract so he was terminated. Now just because Al no longer has a contract with Marvel does not mean he cannot freelance. I went down editors row and informed all of my editors of this and all are aware that Al is still welcomed to ink for Marvel. What happened really sucked on a multitude of different levels so I guess that's why I would rather put it behind us." Not letting people put it behind them quite yet are the merchants on Ebay. Follow the sale of this ever-rarer comic here and here. Otto Chelmen on the Comicon message board also offered up a bit of insight "I'll point out that Milgrom (or his backgrounder) has done this sort of thing before. I remember a DC job 20+ years ago where the books in the background spelled out, "boy, this story sucks."" And congratulations to all of you who gave the correct spelling for the bookshelf graffiti in UniverseX Special: Spidey - it read "Harras, ha ha, he's gone! Good riddance to bad rubbish, he was a nasty S.O.B."" This Has A Rumour Value Of 7 Out Of 10 Joe? No. I hear that a certain someone at Dark Horse has been alleging that the source for certain recent stories about Dark Horse was Oni publisher, Joe Nozemack. Wrong, wrong and thrice wrong. Joe hasn't been a source for this, or any stories. Shame really, I bet he's got some great tales to tell too. This Has A Rumour Value Of 10 Out Of 10. You Think I'd Know, After All... Coveting Coven Awesome's licensing of Coven to Avatar, shortly after Avengelyne had also made the jump caught some people by surprise. Some had presumed it was a creator owned title, some had heard there was bad feeling toward Liefeld from Churchill and some didn't appreciate the new publisher. The following message was posted to the AAO2 private egroups forum, which describes itself as "The Awesome meeting place. A forum to discuss the fanzine Supreme, Awesome Army Outpost, and all other Awesome comics. I have had no luck in contacting Ian Churchill and I request that you remember the Rumour Barrier that every reader passes through before reading the column. Do not repeat the following as fact, use your own judgement and bear in mind the politics of spin. Despite the header, this message was passed on tome by a number of individuals and seems to be going around. Originally posted on the egroup by jimawesome@aol.com on Friday 8th December, it purports to be from Rob Liefeld: DISCLAIMER!!!! THIS IS NOT INTENDED FOR RELEASE TO THE FAN PRESS! IT IS A PRIVATE COMMUNICATION WITH THE AAO!!! AAO Group, Let me address some concerns and opinions you might have. First off, The Coven was by no means the Awesome's flagship title, that would be Supreme and Youngblood. Coven sales were always challenging despite the excellent efforts by Loeb and Churchill. As for loyalty to the comic, its creator, Ian Churchill has not been loyal to the title so I see absolutely no reason to give it special attention. After paying him over $10,000.00 per issue for 4 years, Ian has gone awol and has made no attempt to complete his contract with Awesome/RipleyInc. Keep in mind he made around $4000.00 per issue at Marvel pre-Awesome and despite the sagging Coven sales and his reluctance to listen to any input from our staff, we continued to pay him the top rate in the industry totalling payment over $250,000.00 for the past 4 years. Do you know how many artists would kill for that paycheck? He has chosen to turn his back on the company that made him rich and has broken his contract with Awesome,a situation that will resolve itself in the very near future. In regards to Avatar, they have approached a property that I have no immediate plans for with tremendous zeal and enthusiasm. I have seen the entire Al Rio issue and am very impressed. Rio elevated his already exciting pencils to a new level with his first issue, Coven fans should be very pleased. As to your rush to judgement with Avatar, they are attempting to broaden their audience and are being very aggressive in their efforts to acquire existing licences and should be applauded for their vigor in an otherwise depressed marketplace. William is very enthusiastic and is doing a great job assembling talent on these projects. The Dave Finch cover is stunning and just the tip of the iceberg according to Avatar. I have enjoyed the Avengelyne issues so far and look forward to more great efforts from Avatar. Awesome has avast library of over 500 characters, we cannot and would not choose to publish all of our titles in the current tumultuous marketplace. Do not kid yourself,the industry is suffering terribly! The honest members of the big 2 companies will concede that this is a trying time for publishers. The numbers continue to sink. Avatar is a good home for Avengelyne and Coven, if you don't care for their other books, don't by them. I certainly don't support the vast majority of Dark Horse, Image and Marvel comics, that doesn't affect my enthusiasm for the titles I favor, don't let it affect yours. ------------------------------------------------------ There have been recent rumours that I've received over the weeks that tie in with the above, although I have had no luck verifying them. One states that "Ian Churchill has not been getting any of his original art back,and is majorly pissed at Rob. The only reason he still works with Rob is a hope that he can get back the rights to Coven." If true, that didn't work out, obviously. Another rumour states that Ian Churchill has returned back to the UK and is involved in legal action over Coven and Coven artwork. This Has A Rumour Value Of 5 Out Of 10 Spanish Ears I hear from a Spanish source that in a radio interview with Chris Claremont, he stated that his new non-continuity series would star Storm, Rogue, Psylocke, Bishop, Beast and Thunderbird and that artist Larroca is making new designs for them. The radio interview is said to have continued, saying that Claremont doesn't know when is his new FF special, penciled by Ferry, going to be ready, because Ferry's very busy with Superboy and has the project on the back burner. This Has A Rumour Value Of 6 Out Of 10 +++++ From Comics2Film at http://www.comics2film.com SPIDER-MAN ---------- Kirsten Dunst has officially been cast as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man movie. Dunst is also in next year's direct-to-video comic book movie The Crow: Salvation. +++++ From The Daily Buzz at http://www.fandomshop.com/buzz/ Obergeist Debuts Under New Imprint Top Cow has announced that Obergeist, Tony Harris and Dan Jolley's latest comic book effort, will be the first title launched under it's new Minotaur Press imprint. Minotaur will serve as the imprint label for Top Cow's cutting edge and licensed property titles--excluding Tomb Raider, which will remain under the Top Cow imprint. "Branding is very important to us, we already have an art driven imprint [Top Cow] and J. Michael Straczynski has Joe's Comics to publish his original titles. With Minotaur Press, we now have the opportunity to publish a wide variety of concepts created by some of the top writers and artists in the industry today!" explained Top Cow's President of Publishing Matt Hawkins. "Obergeist is a tale about the quest for redemption; it's a journey a tragic character undertakes in an attempt to atone for the horrors he's committed," explained Jolley, who co-created and co-writes the series with Harris. "More specifically, it's the story of Jurgen Steinholtz, a Nazi butcher scientist working under Josef Mengele, who is radically transformed by a Jewish telepath and made to understand the immensity of the crimes he and the rest of his party have been committing. From there -- by way of the tremendous psychokinetic abilities awakened in Jurgen's mind -- Obergeist takes the readers all the way to Armageddon itself, then to a shadow-filled vision of America in 2147, where Steinholtz has the chance to undo some of the world's evil. "This story partially was inspired by another story Dan and I were developing," Harris added. "The other part of it was from a personal perspective. I was wrestling with what, if any religious beliefs that I had. A lot of the story that I contributed was just deconstructing a lot of religions and mythology and rebuilding it into something I thought was plausible. I wanted to tell a terribly gut wrenching story about ethics, evil deeds and attempting redemption." The first installment of the six issue Obergeist mini-series is scheduled to ship in April 2001. +++++ From Newsarama; http://www.Fandom.com/comics/ WINNER OF THE 1997 & 1998 INTERNET "SQUIDDY" FOR BEST WEB SITE JUDGES NAMED FOR 2000 EISNER AWARDS Jackie Estrada, Administrator of the 13th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards has announced entries are now being accepted. Publishers can submit any comic, graphic novel, or comics-related periodical, book, or item that was shipped to retailers between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2000. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2001. The submitted items will be considered by a "blue-ribbon" panel of judges, who will select the final items to appear on the Eisner Awards ballot. This year's judges, who have been chosen by Estrada, are: Anina Bennett, a writer and editor with over a decade's experience in the comics industry.. She has been an editor at both First Comics and Dark Horse, is the co-creator/writer of the series Heartbreakers, and was co-author of The Big Book of Bad, published by DC Comics's Paradox Press. Karon Flage, business manager and one of the founding members of Sequential Tart a comics industry webzine created by women. She is also on the steering committee for The Expo (formerly SPX) and on the steering committee for the Ignatz Awards, prizes given to publishers and creators for excellence in independent/alternative press. Ralph Mathieu, owner of Alternate Reality Comics in Las Vegas, Nevada. A longtime reader of comics, he opened his store seven years ago with the goal of expanding the audience for comics by offering a wide selection of genres. The store was a finalist for the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailing Award in 1998. Chris Schaff, brand manager at Diamond Comic Distributors. After running a small mail order comics business from 1989 to 1997, he went to work for Diamond in 1997 as a customer services representative. He is currently responsible for the marketing and promotion of half the nonexclusive titles listed in the Previews catalog. Doug Wolk, editor of Publisher's Weekly's comics department. Since 1993 he has written the monthly comics review column for CMG New Music Monthly and has written extensively about comics for World Art, Spin, and The Village Voice. He also writes about music for Rolling Stone and The Boston Phoenix and hosts a weekly radio show on WFMU. "These individuals were chosen for their knowledge of comics and their reputation for integrity," said Estrada. "I look forward to working with them in the judging process and really appreciate them volunteering their time to this important task." Those wanting to submit entries for the judges to consider should send one copy each of the comics or books to be considered and include a cover letter indicating what is being submitted and in what categories. The tentative categories include best single issue, best short story, best serialized story, best continuing comic book series (at least two issues must have been published in 2000), best limited comic book series (at least half of the series must have been published in 2000), best new series, best title aimed at a younger audience, best anthology, best graphic album—new material, best graphic album—reprint, best archival collection, best humor publication, best U.S. edition of foreign material, best writer, best writer/artist, best penciler/inker (individual or team), best painter (interior art), best lettering, best coloring, best editor, best comics-related publication (book or periodical), and best comics-related item. Publishers may submit a maximum of five items for any one category, and the same item or person can be submitted for more than one category. Each imprint, line, or subsidiary of a publisher may submit its own set of entries. There are no entry fees. Creators can submit materials for consideration if: (a) their publisher is no longer in business; (b) their publisher is unlikely to have participated in the nomination process; or (c) they have severed connections with the publisher or have similar reasons for believing that their publisher is unlikely to consider nominating them or their work. All submissions should be sent to Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator, 4657 Cajon Way, San Diego, CA 92115, before the deadline of March 15. The nominees will be announced in April, and ballots will go out in May to more than 5,000 creators, editors, publishers, distributors, and retailers. The results will be announced by celebrity presenters at the gala awards ceremony on the evening of July 22 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. The Eisner Awards are administered under the auspices of the San Diego Comic Convention, Inc., a nonprofit educational corporation. Anyone with questions about submitting entries for the awards can e-mail Ms. Estrada at jackiee@inetworld.net or call her at (619) 286-1591. Additional information on the Eisners can be found at www.comic-con.org. MILLAR TO WRITE 4th MARVEL ULTIMATE TILE - Marvel Press Conference Newsbytes On Wednesday afternoon Marvel's Bill Jemas held Marvel`s bi-weekly conference call with members of the comics press. Unlike past weeks - which had `themes', such the planned changes to the X-Men and Spider-Man lines - this session had no overall formal theme, and instead served as an open Q&A session. Among the developments revealed_ Asked if Marvel had any plans or designs to work with Alan Moore and/or Frank Millar, Jemas said the "door is always open" to them, and although Quesada is in contact with those creators on a personal level, there are no current plans. Mark Millar, who Jemas calls a "key and crucial player" in the Marvel Ultimate Universe, is said to have some "sweeping work" planned for the line. Jemas also reports a fourth Ultimate title is planned for 2001, written by Millar. "If something really really compelling came along we might see a fifth book," said Jemas. "Four books, one a week, that`s pretty good...it may be easy to push too far on that...this is an entry book into the world of Marvel. I don`t think it would make sense to flood the markplace with lots and lots of Ultimate comics." Jemas said depending on reader reaction, there would be a second monthly Marvel Ultimate Magazine in 2001. Current plans for the title debuting in January to alternate between Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man and Millar's Ultimate X-Men, though with the upcoming `Spider-Man Team-up' title by Bendis, and Millar's unidentified fourth Ultimate title, it's possible two magazines could eventually be published, one featuring Bendis' stories, the other with Millar's. Marvel plans to move to significantly higher print runs on trade paperbacks designed in part to help bring the cost down. Marvel is exploring possibilities of "digitizing" their library on CD ROMs and is in talks with two major companies to those ends. Jemas said developments could occur as early as the first quarter of 2001. Marvel is "further down the line" in the development of the Mature Readers line, and Jemas reports a good deal of the line will be creator-shared/creator-owned, though he went on to say the Mature Readers line won't necessarily be all creator-owned. Like December 2000, Jemas reports sales for January 2001 were better than January 2000. Jemas said though writer Greg Bear's schedule is pretty full until June of 2001, he said they're still hoping to get together with the sci-fi author on a comic project. Jemas confirmed Brian Azzarello has signed to work with editor Axel Alonso on a project. An X-Men summit will be held in New York with all the major X-creators and editors in two weeks. KEVIN SMITH CHANGES HIS `IMAGE` Press Release Image VP-Publisher, Jim Valentino announced today that writer/director Kevin Smith`s View Askew Productions, in association with Graphitti Designs, has entered into a unique and exciting co-publishing agreement with Image Comics. "Image will be publishing Bluntman & Chronic comics, a new three issue, full-color finite series from Kevin and Powers artist, Michael Avon Oeming plus re-releasing several of the View Askew Trade Paperbacks with new photo covers." Valentino said. "All of us here are fans of Kevin`s work and we consider this a huge step forward for the new Image." "Boy, have we cooked up something fun for comic fans and retailers alike," stated Smith, who is currently in pre-production on his fifth film. "The mini-series is an offshoot of two View Askew flicks: `Chasing Amy`, and the summer 2001 Dimension release we`re working on right now, `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back`. Not only does the mini function as a linking device between the two, it`s also a valentine of sorts to the history of comics in general." Smith explained further. "In `Amy`, Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards (Ben Affleck and Jason Lee, also returning in `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back`), created `Bluntman and Chronic` as comic book alter egos of Jay and Silent Bob. This thread from the earlier flick drives the plot of the present one, so it just seemed natural to actually create the comics that we`ve only seen the covers to in `Amy` (drawn by the mini-series cover artist, Mike Allred). Fans of our flicks and comic fans in general should really enjoy the three issues, which poke fun at golden, silver, and modern age comics." Scheduled thus far are `Bluntman and Chronic` comics #1, 2 and 3. Issue #1 is slated for an early June 2001 release with issues #2 and #3 to follow on a strict bi-weekly schedule. These comics will feature the original Mike Allred covers as seen in Smith`s `Chasing Amy`, with interior color story pages by Oeming. July will also see the release for the first time in full-color, the `Chasing Dogma` Trade Paperback, with an all-new photo cover. The Clerks TPB (also with a photo cover ), is scheduled for August together with the outrageous Bluntman and Chronic action figures from Graphitti Designs. With the `Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back` movie scheduled for a wide release on Aug. 10, 2001, the goal is to have lots of cool stuff available for Smith`s fans when the movie breaks. Talking about the marketing possibilities, Smith added "The fact that the mini-series ties in with a major summer movie release means non-comic-buyers are going to be venturing into comic shops, looking for these titles (which also show up in the flick). Savvy retailers are being handed a big opportunity with these books because, as a booster of the medium (and a retailer myself), my aim is to turn curious one-timers into repeat customers." "The comic specialty retailers have been given a prime opportunity to capitalize on Jay and Silent Bob`s popularity", quipped Graphitti Designs` Bob Chapman. "Kevin`s audience transcends the traditional comics fans. Consumers who as a rule do not frequent their local comic stores, will drop by once they know they can get Kevin Smith stuff that they just can`t find anywhere else. The comics and TPB`s cross-promoted with the videos, T-shirts, action figures and other goodies, makes the creation of a View Askew "boutique" exciting and profitable for all. This is Kevin`s final Jay & Silent Bob film and is destined to be the biggest and the best yet", Chapman continued. "A 2000+ plus screen opening is already planned and with a star-studded cast already secured, Jay & Silent Bob will be taken out in style." Touching on his reputation for lateness in comics, Smith volunteered "I know this may be a well-earned reservation for some, based on my lateness with `Jay and Silent Bob` #4, but I`m telling you, we`re going to hit every one of our bi-weekly dates, folks. I promise. Taking a page out of my `Green Arrow` book, I waited until all the scripts were finished to even approach Image about soliciting. And with Mike Oeming already hard at work on the art, I personally guarantee these comics will be on your shelves on their scheduled release dates. I`m as committed to that as I am to getting `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back` into theaters, August 10, 2001." THE MARK GETS ANIMATED Variety reports that Will Smith`s Overlook Entertainment is set to develop The Mark as an animated series for Nickelodeon, based on the Universal feature written by Rob Liefeld, which is still set to star Smith. The busy actor may provide the voice for the TV version of The Mark, but nothing has been decided at this point. KILDARE WAS HERE, NOW SHE`S BACK Remember a few years back?? That new Image series with stunning interior art by a rising newcomer that was sure to be become one of the industry's hottest books? Aria creators Brian's Holguin and Haberlin sure do, and while artist Jay Anacleto's working pace never let that series gain any regular momentum, Holguin and Haberlin hope that once-high interest in their character is still out there. March marks a new beginning for the series, and introduces its new regular interior artist_ an artist the creators expect will make as big a splash as Anacleto did. Aria: Soul Market #1 is the first story arc of a new almost-monthly (Holguin hopes for around 10 issues a year) Aria ongoing series of limited series, written by Holguin, with covers by Anacleto and interiors by Australian artist David Yardin. Each story arc will sport a different name, and its own numbering, ala series like Hellboy. "We`re really looking at these in terms of collections," said Holguin. WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN A DAY? While Joe Quesada's recent challenge to Todd McFarlane may go unmet, creators Erik Larsen and Chris (Desperate Times) Eliopoulos are taking up creator Scott McCloud's_ Don't know what McCloud's challenge is you say? Through this books Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, McCloud has established himself as a critic, observer and commentator of comic books and the industry. Always examining and experimenting with the art form, he issued a dare to creators in the Experiments section of his website, ScottMcCloud.com - to create a complete 24 page-comic book in 24 continuous hours_ "That means everything," he challenges on his website. "Story, finished art, lettering, colors (if you want `em), paste-up, everything! Once pen hits paper, the clock starts ticking. 24 hours later, the pen lifts off the paper, never to descend again. Even proofreading has to occur in the 24 hour period." "At one hour per page, some treat the 24-hour comic as a minimalist exercise – how little can you put on a page and still have it be comics – but I like to think of it in the opposite way; how much can you draw in an hour?! If you think about it, the answer is a lot! "My strongest suggestion is: Do it!" McCloud concludes. "It`s fun, it`s exciting, it`s mind-altering, it`ll teach you all kinds of cool stuff about yourself and – best of all – it`s only one day, so what have you got to lose?" It's an interesting notion, especially in an age where creators can go a year between issues, and Larsen and Eliopoulos are answering the call, each creating a brand-new 24 page story that will be published as March's Image Two-in-One, a 48-page, black & white one-shot starring the duos 24-hour creations, respectively. "Erik was out here for a New York show and he stayed over my place for an extra day and we both sat in my studio and created a 24 page comic each over 24 hours," explained Eliopoulos. "We did no prior work and did no character studies nor did we write anything down - when the clock ticked and the 24 hours started and we began work. And when the 24 hours was up we put down our pens. Wizard was on hand and did a story on it and took pictures through the night." According to the creators, Larsen`s story is a "ripping superhero yarn told in a very unorthodox fashion" about 2 brothers talking over lunch about their lives while a superhero battle takes place outside the restaurant. Eliopoulos` is the story of a little kid in a big city "who receives a crayon for his birthday that brings to life anything he draws and he wreaks revenge and havoc on lots of folks." Said Larsen, "The tone in both is relatively light but there are deadly serious moments as well." SHOW AND TELLOS Todd DeZago followed up our conversation in Newsarama Weekly about his new March-debuting series Tales of Tellos. According to DeZago, the series is currently set for three bi-monthly issues, but the writer reports interest among his and Mike Wieringo's creator friends, that they'll probably have enough material for a few more issues. Each artist will contribute stories of 8, 10 and 16 pages, though DeZago reports Craig Rousseau got a little ambitious, and will be illustrating an upcoming 40-page story. WORD ON THE STREET This April Oni Press will debut a couple of new series that will make up a sort of "All Ages" line for the publisher – a new Alison Dare mini-series and the return of Jay Stephens Jet Cat in a brand new series. The Return of Alison Dare Little Miss Adventures is a new three-issue, bimonthly miniseries that continues the adventures of the daughter of world renowned archeologist Dr. Alice Dare and crime-fighting superhero The Blue Scarab. The series will be written and illustrated by J. Torres and J. Bone, creative team of the September Alison Dare one-shot. "The first story is called Alison Dare and the Arabian Knights, and involves Alison visiting her mother in the fictitious Sulatanate of Sharazad where she comes across a magic lamp," Torres told Newsarama. "Naturally, she rubs the lamp, unleashes a genie and the misadventures begin there." Readers can check out more on Alison Dare at the onipress.com website by clicking on "Exclusives" to find the archives for the online Alison comic strips. April also sees the debut of Jetcat Clubhouse from Jay Stephens, featuring the return of Stephens' kid superhero, who has made appearances in the creator's Eisner-nominated Land of Nod Treasury by Dark Horse and Black Eye Press. The character has also appeared in Nickelodeon Magazine. According to Oni, Melanie McKay is Jetcat, the world's greatest eight-year-old crime fighter. Between school and catching her favorite TV show, `Jumbo Head', she stops giant robots and evil masterminds from taking over the world, all the while protecting the secret identity only her and Todd Johnson know." The bi-monthly series will also feature a variety of Stephens' other characters, and will include an eight-page color section every other issue. It will begin as a six-issue series but with the possibility of more. Long-time fan favorite artist and Marvel legacy John Romita Jr. tells Newsarama his comics future has been secured for a while. According to the artist, he's just renewed his exclusive creator contract with Marvel, just time for a three-year term. No surprises as to his upcoming assignments however. As previously announced, JRJr. will be remaining on Amazing Spider-Man as its regular penciler, and joining the regular creative team of the Incredible Hulk. While his Gorilla title Empire (with Mark Waid) clearly is not intended to be released monthly, it doesn't mean artist Barry Kitson isn't working at a monthly pace. In addition to Empire, Kitson has several more project in his current `to do' file. First up will be an upcoming three-issue Legends of the Dark Knight story arc written by Doug Moench, which Kitson is penciling and inking. According to editor Andy Helfer, the story arc, entitled Bad (appearing in issues #146-148) "is a Bat-tale with a psychological bent." After that, Kitson will turn to penciling and inking a sequel to the recent Elseworlds series The Secret Society of Superheroes. Said Helfer, "the writers Howard Chaykin and David Tischman will be taking that storyline to the next level of development. Always thought that particular series would be especially ripe for sequel-dom...and Chaykin and Tischman are proving me right." After that, Kitson heads back to LODK for second bookend to the Bad story – "in which the shrink introduced in the first series sets her sights on the Psychoanalysis of Batman." Joe Quesada tells Newsarama a Marvel Knights series starring the Daredevil character Echo is definitely in the discussion stage, with David Mack attached. "We`ve spoken to David about it and he seems interested. We haven't really taken it past that point but it`s a sure bet that if we do Echo, David is involved somehow," he said. Mack has recently told readers he and his Kabuki Agents: Scarab partner, artist Rick Mays, will probably do a project for Marvel next. Jerry Ordway's upcoming USAgent three-issue mini-series should start some time around May of 2001," says editor Tom Brevoort. Ordway will write and pencil the series, with Karl Kesel doing the inks. "It`s still too early to say too much about the actual story content, but it`ll absolutely follow up on the Agent`s new status quo as set up in Maximum Security", said the editor. The Vertigo title Swamp Thing is getting a new look beginning this March. In a post to Warren Ellis' Delphi forum regarding the previously confirmed cancellation of Deadenders, editor Heidi McDonald revealed a new regular penciler has been assigned to the series, newcomer Giuseppe Camuncoli. DC continues to make adjustments to the shipping schedule of Mark Waid and Bryan Hitch’s JLA. Issue #50 and been changed from 12/27/00 to a new date of o1/17/01. DC recently announced penciler Javier Saltares will contribute pencils to issue #49, along with Hitch, and that issue is currently scheduled for 12/20/00. Fandom.com contributor Jay Busbee sends word that although Bronwyn Carlton will be exiting her role at writer of DC's Catwoman, she's not out of the comics game. Carlton has revealed she recently began a job as a part-time editor for Marvel's Marvel Knights imprint. "Bronwyn has been hired by MK to assist us with our ever growing line of books," said Joe Quesada. "Marvel Knights will be assisting with Marvel`s launch of a Mature Readers imprint and for the immediate future, that`s what Bromwyn will be focusing on along With Stuart, Nanci and Kelly." PALMIOTTI'S DANCE CARD FILLS - EXITS DEADPOOL Creator Jimmy Palmiotti, best known as one of the industry's top inkers, co-founder of the Marvel Knights imprint and lately writer of Deadpool , has announced he's leaving that title as of June's issue #55. "This issue will wrap up all the current storylines that Buddy [Scalera] and I have introduced and leave a clean slate for the next crew on the book," explained Palmiotti in the statement. "I really was originally just going to stay till issue #51, but working with Buddy and the crew at the Deadpool office has been so much fun, they hooked me on for a few more. "Currently Buddy and I are scripting #53 and will soon be off to take on two other writing gigs (including writing at DC and creating a new character for another company),as well as baby sitting the Gatecrasher and Surf & Turf animation properties. This is a lot of work, even for me. I`m very excited at all these new projects coming my way and I hope everyone digs the rest of the Deadpool issues we have planned. I think they`re killers. SUPERMAN GETS A `RINGO In a recent conversation with Newsarama, Tellos writer Todd DeZago told us he and his creative partner Mike Wieringo would be developing some work-for-hire projects at other publishers while they put their Gorilla series on hold for a while (though Tales of Tellos begins in March). DC has confirmed, that as of May's issue #592, Wieringo will join writer Joe Casey as the new regular penciler of Adventures of Superman. DAREDEVIL HAS DATE According to Marvel Knights assistant editor Kelly Lamy, Daredevil #14 has been given an on sale date of January 17th; and before all you internet jokesters put fingers to keyboard, yes, it`s January 17th, 2001 . +++++ From Zentertainment; HTTP://WWW.ZENTERTAINMENT.COM To sign a friend up or begin receiving ZEN yourself, e-mail: subscribe@ZENtertainment.com GREEN TO LAUNCH 'DOLLZ' IN APRIL Former WITCHBLADE penciler Randy Green has a new series entitled 'DOLLZ' lined up to hit comic store shelves in April, 2001. "It will be a real fun thing", explains Green, "Its definitely all ages. The storylines will be something adults can get into, with betrayal and intrigue, but as far as action goes, there wont be people with their heads getting blown off... The visual part will be something that kids can enjoy." Writer Tom Sniegoski will be co-writing the series with Green. A 5-page preview of DOLLZ is available in TIDALWAVE Studios 10th MUSE #2, on shelves January 10, 2001. http://www.tidalwavestudios.com NO MORE COMICS FROM ACCLAIM? ACCLAIM's recent year-end fiscal reports revealed that while the company plans to continue publishing strategy guides for its video games, the company will no longer publish comics. http://www.acclaim.com 'NOD' SERIES AT ONI IN APRIL JETCAT CLUBHOUSE heralds the return of Jay Stephens to the characters of THE LAND OF NOD. Published by ONI Press, this new bi-monthly series hits store shelves in April 2001. Every issue is set to have 24 pages of art and story, and in odd numbered issues 8 of those 24 pages will be in color. Additional projects planned by ONI Press for Stephens include a collection of some of his earliest material, THE LAND OF NOD TREASURE, arriving in May. http://www.onipress.com UPDATE: The first issue of DANGER GIRL: KAMIKAZE will now be released on January 31st. +++++ From the DCOnline newsletter; http://www.dccomics.com/newsletter.html To subscribe, or for questions or comments about the DC newsletter, please email DCWebSite@aol.com. DC COMICS NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 15, 2000 www.dccomics.com www.dckids.com www.madmag.com JACK LIEBOWITZ DIES AT 100 DC Comics regrets to announce that Jack S. Liebowitz, founding co-publisher of DC Comics, passed away from natural causes on December 11, 2000 in Great Neck, NY. Born on October 10, 1900 in Russia, Liebowitz is survived by his wife Shirley and two daughters Joan Levy and Linda Stillman. Along with business partner Harry Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz invested in the first-ever comic books published by DC Comics founding father Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Donenfeld and Liebowitz distributed the comics through their Independent News Company (later to become Warner Publisher Services, one of the country's largest distributors of magazines and paperbacks.) In 1937, they bought out Wheeler-Nicholson and launched Detective Comics, which was the first successful comic book with original stories around a single theme and the one which gave the company the name by which it has been known ever since. Not only did Liebowitz finance the early days of comics and foster the creation of the world's most beloved super heroes, he established comic-book publishing as a legitimate, viable and profitable business. So fervent in his belief of the future of comics that in 1939, Liebowitz invested in and created another company called All-American Comics with M.C. Gaines, a printing salesman who also was an early pioneer of the comic book industry. The two companies shared DC's distribution system, and eventually merged in 1946. Liebowitz went on to serve as President of National Periodical Publications, Inc. (the public company that included DC, Independent News, MAD Magazine and Licensing Corporation of America) until it merged into Kinney Services. From 1967-1991, Liebowitz served on the board of directors for Kinney Services and subsequently Warner Communications, which later became Time Warner. Profiled in the article "Making Comics A Business" from 1985's FIFTY WHO MADE DC GREAT, Jack Liebowitz showed an undying support for the medium when he said: "Some people viewed comics as just a passing fad. Not me. From the beginning, I felt that comics could be a vital part of the publishing field. They had a broad appeal and a great potential for telling stories." For fifty years, Liebowitz was a founding trustee and board member of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Jenette Kahn, President and Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics said, "Jack Liebowitz was the best of his generation, one of the extraordinary entrepreneurs who not only helped found DC Comics but the comics industry itself. In addition, he was the most successful of his generation, taking DC public in 1961 under the title of National Periodical Publications. Mr. Liebowitz later pulled off his most foresighted coup, selling DC Comics to Steven J. Ross as one of the building blocks of his fledgling corporation, Warner Communications, Inc. He remained continuously active, coming into his office at Warner Communications every day and serving on the Warner board until he was past 90. We are forever grateful to Mr. Liebowitz for his risk-taking and prescience and will miss his life long commitment to the companies he helped launch." Private services will be held in Great Neck, NY on Wednesday, December 13, 2000. KIDS WB! ANNOUNCES A SECOND SEASON OF STATIC SHOCK! Kids' WB! has ordered a second season of 13 original episodes of Static Shock from Warner Bros. Animation for Fall 2001. Since its September 23, 2000 debut, the series has been the #1 broadcast program (season-to-date) among its time period competitors. INTERACTIVE CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS COVER CHARACTER FINDER AT DCCOMICS.COM With the arrival of the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS TP (STAR12226) in stores now, DC unveils a CRISIS character finder available online at www.dccomics.com/crisis/cover.html. Creating a finder to the cover of the CRISIS paperback, it also gives a character index, listing every character featured on the cover alphabetically. By clicking on a character's name, a black-&-white outline map of the poster will appear in a separate window, highlighting the selected character's silhouette in yellow as well as instantly zooming in on the selected character's location on the image as well. This feature is available in both a browser version for online use, a downloadable version for offline desktop use and a black & white index version for computers with limited graphics capabilities. According to Greg Ross, DC's Director -- Multimedia Programming: "When we knew that the CRISIS cover character finder was to be posted on the web, we knew it had to be lasting, informative and really cool. If you own the book, it's a very useful tool. If you don't own it, you'll want to. It's hard to say no to something like this." BATMAN BEYOND/STATIC SHOCK! EPISODE SCHEDULE Warner Bros. Animation has supplied DC with the following air schedule for the animated Batman Beyond and Static Shock! on the WB Network, airing Saturday mornings and on weekday afternoons. All times are Eastern and Pacific: 12/16/00 (8:00 am) -- "King's Ransom" (Batman Beyond) 12/16/00 (11:00 am) -- "Winds of Change" (Static Shock!-new) 12/19/00 (3:30 pm) -- "Once BurnedÖ" (Batman Beyond) 12/20/00 (3:30 pm) -- "Babel" (Batman Beyond) 12/21/00 (3:30 pm) -- "Spellbound" (Batman Beyond) 12/22/00 (7:30 am) -- "Hidden Agenda" (Batman Beyond) 12/23/00 (8:00 am) -- "The Call-Part 1" (Batman Beyond) 12/23/00 (11:00 am) -- "Grounded" (Static Shock!) ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [5] Interview Tim O'Shea tim_jen@mindspring.com [Tim O'Shea is a 32-year old desktop publisher who lives in Atlanta with his wife and son. Tim, who has been reading comic books on a weekly basis since 1977, thinks he's the only rabid comic book fan who intends never to attend a convention.] Originally posted to: http://www.thecomicreader.com/newsmain.htm Copyright 2000 - The Comic Reader, used with permission Chasing Amy (Not That Amy): An E-Interview with AMY UNBOUNDED Creator Rachel Hartman As part of TCR's ongoing effort to draw attention to the self- publisher market (as well as the mainstream comic industry_, I recently had the opportunity to e-interview Rachel Hartman, creator of AMY UNBOUNDED, a mini-comic series published though Hartman's Pughouse Press. As described at the book's official website (www.students.uiuc.edu/~rjhartma/amy.html): "AMY UNBOUNDED chronicles the adventures and misadventures of nine-year-old Amy of Eddybrook in the medieval queendom of Goredd. Her father is a weaver, her mother's a barbarian clockmaker, and as for Amy herself... well the word `silly' comes to mind. So does `rambunctious.' Sometimes she wishes she were a knight, other times a famous bombarde player, a scholar, or explorer. Her big imagination occasionally gets her in trouble, but just as often gets her right back out of it." My thanks to Rachel for her time and thoughts. -Tim O'Shea, TCR Senior Online News Editor O'SHEA: Having read Lee Atchison's July 1999 interview with you at Sequential Tart (www.sequentialtart.com/archive/july99/hartman.shtml) I know that you strive to write Amy, your main nine-year- old character reacting as a nine-year old would, rather than giving the character a reaction that an adult would have. How hard is it to remember how you thought as a nine year old? HARTMAN: It varies. There are certain details I remember absolutely clearly and other things I really have to fudge. I know I get it wrong sometimes, and that Amy is very articulate and self-aware for a kid that age. My excuse is that, as a bright young girl in a society that doesn't particularly value intelligence in girls, Amy is for the most part understimulated. She's got a lot of brains and nothing (like school, for example) that she's being asked to focus on, and the result is that she focuses very intently on the people around her, noticing things that would probably elude your average, more occupied nine-year-old. But, like I said, that's possibly just me making excuses. What I do remember about being nine is that it was the age when adults began making sense to me, when I began understanding their conversations and listening to my parents talk to each other. Before that, they sounded like the teacher on Peanuts specials, you know? Waaah-waaaah, Waaah-woooh. Incomprehensible. Part of my intention in Amy Unbounded is to show Amy beginning to understand some things that the adult reader will already understand -- to the extent that the adult reader will even occasionally notice that Amy's got it wrong. It's all about watching her grow. O'SHEA: What books did you read growing up that you feel influence AMY today? Who were your favorite authors? Did your mother's art influence your style at all? HARTMAN: Heh, you're right to ask about books, and not comic books. I didn't read comic books. I was too much of a snob for that. I did, however, read voraciously as a child: Susan Cooper, Roald Dahl, Edward Eager, Lloyd Alexander, John Bellairs, J.R.R. Tolkien . . . I still love children's books. When I got out of college, the first thing I did was sit down and read all of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (which took about one night). I've read all of Harry Potter, and am working on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials as we speak. I have a lot of highfalutin' theories about what makes good children's fiction, and I won't bore you with most of it except to say that I think it's very important not to write down to kids. When I was young, I loved nothing better than to read something that was supposed to be slightly beyond my cognitive grasp (and in many cases probably was!). I think that's why one finds J.K. Rowling (and Phillip Pullman, even more) have such a large adult readership -- they are writing books that interest them personally, rather than keeping some hypothetical fourth grader's vocabulary and attention span always in mind. And that's the path I'd like to tread with Amy, having the comic interesting to adult and young readers alike. Other literary influences would definitely be big 19th-century novels (esp. Dickens, Austen, and Dostoyevsky) (ooh! and Tolstoy!) and Latin-American magic realism (e.g. Garcia Marquez). I find myself most attracted to authors who have created full and abundant worlds, brimming with characters and rich with detail, places you are sorry to have to leave when the book is over. I think I try to create that feeling as well in my work, so that one can think back and remember the work fondly, like an old friend. I wouldn't say my mother has influenced my style that much -- our respective media are very different -- but I think she has influenced the way I look at art, or more precisely, the act of making art. We have similar quirks, even though we do such different work. We both experience the same odd paradox if we've been away from our work too long -- we're too crabby to get started again, and yet getting back into it is the only thing that can cheer us up. It's nice to have someone to talk to about that sort of thing, and who will say, "Girl, get your sorry behind back to the drawing table!" O'SHEA: The mainstream comic industry is always trying to bolster readership, particularly the often neglected female sector. What advice, if any, would you give mainstream writers and artists to make their work more palatable to both genders? HARTMAN: I think one key is variety. The more different kinds of work that are out there, the more likely it is that any given reader will be able to find a book that he or she likes. Gestures are being made in that direction, I think. I was able to get my husband, who has zero interest in comics, to read Whiteout, and he liked it so much he loaned it to a friend of his. Scott liked the fact that a University of Chicago physicist like himself was part of the story, and that struck me as significant. People like to see themselves in stories, but there are very few of us who resemble what you see in mainstream comics, either physically or mentally. Comics need to be as diverse as the readers themselves. I guess another element which would attract more readers is good storytelling. It's easy to pontificate on what makes a good story and much harder to actually go out and make one, so I'm not going to give a lecture on that. I do think the craft of storytelling gets less attention than it should. For me, the beauty of the medium is that words and pictures are working together in service of the story. The story is first and foremost, and every detail of the artwork, every line of dialogue, moves the story forward, directs its flow, and shapes readers' perceptions. Comics is an elegant and powerful medium, allowing the creator to say precisely what she wants and needs to say, but I think a lot of work out there today doesn't take full advantage of this. O'SHEA: Obviously family plays an important role in Amy's life and yours. You mentioned in the Tart interview that your husband will suggest a plot idea once and awhile. Given that part of the inspiration of Amy's life is yours, do you ever find yourself calling your siblings or parents to bounce story ideas or give a perspective on some event in your life which you're trying to translate into AMY? HARTMAN: I contacted both my sisters while I was working on issue 10, where Amy gets her first crush and it's on her seventeen-year-old neighbor, Trig Ducanahan. I was having a terrible time of it -- I had Amy way too fretful, like she was some kind of miniature Woody Allen, and I knew it was wrong but I couldn't fix it somehow. So I asked my sisters if they remembered their first crushes and what was it like and what did they do about it. And they told me all the silly things they had done (some of which were mighty silly indeed, and got turned into Amy actions), but most of all it made me realize I had her being way too analytical, that a crush was something to be swept up by now and thought through later. More typically what will happen is that I will have the story all worked out in my head and they will call ME up and tell me all their theories about what's going to happen next. Before this last issue, in particular, I couldn't talk to any of them without the conversation turning into "You're not really going to let Pearl-Agnes marry that dreadful Bartolo, are you? Now here's what I think should happen..." I had my own family threatening me with bodily harm if I let anything happen to poor Pearl! Scott (my husband) swears up and down that Amy's friends Molly and Susa are really my sisters thinly disguised, but I never thought of that until he pointed it out. Amy's parents are a lot like my parents if you put all their traits together in a jug and shook them up and randomly redistributed them, and of course Amy is a lot like me, except more confident and outgoing. Scott always insists that any male lead who's handsome or clever must be based on him, and I just smile and nod. O'SHEA: Have you considered collaborating with anyone else on projects other than AMY, where you would be the artist for someone else's writing or vice versa? HARTMAN: Well, my own silly collaboration dream that someday I might get to draw a story for one of Jim Ottaviani's science comics. I just love the books he's done so far. It's unique and important work, and I'd be so flattered I'd fall right out of my chair and break something, so it's probably just as well. Seriously, collaboration isn't something I think about much. My writing and drawing are so strongly bound up together that I think it would be difficult to tease them apart. It would be easier for me to draw someone else's story than to write a story for someone else, which is ironic of course because I think I come across as a much stronger writer than artist. And I AM a much stronger writer, but the way I write is such that I don't have the dialogue (or even the action) of any given page completely solidified until it is on the board and inked. Can you imagine the poor artist I'd be working with... I'm thinking of a page I did just yesterday, where I got the dialogue more or less the way I wanted it, I figured out what shape the panels should be (!), but I had no idea what was going on in the panels. Poor Artist: So . . . what's going on in these panels? Rachel [peering, vulture-like over artist's shoulder]: I have absolutely no idea. Poor Artist: You wrote this whole dialogue and you don't know what's happening. Rachel: Uh... yeah. Poor Artist: FINE! I'll have Amy and Bran picking blackberries. Rachel: Oh no! Blackberries won't be out in Goredd until mid- September! Poor Artist: I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! [knocks Rachel off stool with Ignatz brick. End of collaboration] I'm sure you're wondering, by this point, how my stories turn out even remotely coherent, and all I can tell you is I have no idea, but it's an experience akin to the labors of Hercules for each and every issue. I wrestle them into coherence. I am, for the sake of experiment and also as a means of procrastination, trying to write the script for the next long story arc in a complete and coherent manner, from beginning to end. It's an interesting exercise, and an incredibly frustrating endeavor, at least so far, but I think it can only be good for me in the end, and will make the actual drawing a breeze since I will have done all my wrestling long before. O'SHEA: According to the Amy Unbounded website, for two years you did a comic strip called "Ellen of Troy." Any plans to ever revisit that work and what is it about? HARTMAN: Ah, dear old Ellen. I do have some secret plans brewing to revive the strip, but nothing official yet. I don't know how to describe the strip exactly, except to say that the characters included Joseph Conrad (the novelist), a talking cassette tape named Cassius, Hector prince of Troy, a mariachi band made entirely of celery stalks, and of course, Ellen herself, who was possibly the strangest of the lot. Basically, whatever I was studying at the time would be bait for the strip. There was a version of Euripides' Hyppolytos, for example, and a strip where Ellen explains to her advisor that her thesis will be an exploration of the themes of Elvis and Spam in classical Greek literature. It was very scholarly, very silly, and of course if I did the strip now it would have to be completely different because I don't have my professors to kick around anymore. Actually, it's funny to look back at my various early works because the learning curve is so visible. I am entirely self-taught as an artist. I tried out for the cartoonist's job my sophomore year, but didn't get it because the strip was poorly drawn. I spent that summer illustrating a children's book about trees -- poorly, I might add -- but that experience improved my drawing enough that the school paper picked up my strip the next year. Then, having two years of comic strip experience under my belt, I was able to go back and redo the illustrations for the book about trees, such that they are no longer completely embarrassing and the book is distributed by the International Society of Arboriculture on Arbor Day. O'SHEA: You've been producing AMY UNBOUNDED for almost four years now. When you started in 1996 did you envision you'd still be doing the character in 2000? Is the whole AMY UNBOUNDED life plotted out (do you have the conclusion written) or is it a never-ending story, that you want to write for many years to come, shaping her life as impacted by events in your life? HARTMAN: When I first started, I saw it as kind of a fun, transitional work, something I could do to hone my skills until I was good enough to do a couple "serious" works (which I may still do someday). But somewhere along the line I fell in love, with Amy, with her parents, with the Dragon Lalo (yow!), with their whole world. There are stories layered upon stories in my mind, stories about minor characters, stories involving characters we haven't even met yet, more myths about the trickster Pau-Henoa, and on and on. So I guess it's never-ending in the sense that there's always another branch of the tree for me to run up. As for Amy herself, I have plans for her. People who know me know that I am sometimes unsure exactly how the story I'm working on is going to end until I end it, so I can't claim anything about Amy in the future is set in stone. But she will get older, and there will eventually be an end. I don't mean I'll depict her death, but rather that there will be a story that will be the last one, and I'll know when I get there. That's something I really admire about R.K. Rowling, actually, that she refuses to let Harry Potter turn into an infinite series like Babysitters' Club or Goosebumps. I think she has a clearer idea how her work will end than I do, though! I am actually at something of a crossroads with the series, though. By the end of December I will finish (I hope!) the current story arc, and then I am going to have to reevaluate what I'm doing. I am considering collecting the work so far into two trade paperbacks, but whether it's going to be me doing that myself, or whether I'm going to try to find someone to do that for me is still up in the air. And then where to go from there? I am putting far too much time and effort into each issue for it to be "just a mini" much longer. I think I have put together a good body of work and that it's time for me to find a way to get Amy the larger audience she deserves, I'm just not sure which way to go about it yet. O'SHEA: What books (comics or otherwise) have you enjoyed recently? HARTMAN: Yes, I do read comics now, and enjoy them immensely. Most recently I have been enjoying the latest CASTLE WAITING storyline -- it's so great to have that series back! The present tale deals with medieval gender relations, which is something I also explore in my work, and it's great to see someone else's take on it. A recent work that made me leap to my feet when I read it was the first part of Carla Speed McNeil's current FINDER story, Talisman. The series as a whole is wonderful, anthropological Sci-fi, very rich and complex, but I have to say she has really outdone herself with this latest issue. Talisman (so far) details a young girl's intellectual awakening -- another topic dear to my heart! -- and is told with dazzling emotional precision. I really did jump to my feet while reading it, it was so good. I also have to mention a prose book series I've already mentioned: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, the third volume of which has just been published. Excellent stuff, very dark, very frightening, and with a heroine who just amazes me because she's like nothing I would ever have thought up in a million years. It's great to find a piece of fiction that can jerk me out of complacency like that. It's brilliant. Other than that (and Harry Potter!), I read very little straight fiction anymore. I just don't find most of it that compelling, and would rather spend my (not so) copious free time on research for the comic. I read medieval economic history, costume books, books about medieval farmhouses, agriculture, cooking... I have a great book on Indian embroidery. My very favorite book that I own is Horn and Born's Plan of St. Gall, a massive three-volume examination of a medieval architectural plan for an exemplary monastery. I am awed by the depth and breadth of the authors' obsession, and find the book inspiring and useful on many levels. ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [6] Interview Paul Dale Roberts Silhouet98@cs.com Interview with Ryan Crouse, Publisher, Star Verse Comics Interviewed by: Paul Dale Roberts, Publisher - Jazma Universe Online! Question: Before we get this interview started, can you tell us something personal about yourself? Your family life, where you were born and raised, what schools you attended? First of all, I will like to say that I am Honored to be interviewed by you. I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and have lived about a mile out of Wroxton (a Very small town) since 1984. I have One older sister (Tanya) 1 older Brother (Travis), and a younger brother (Darren) who on Mon. Nov. 27 was on the TV show "Street Cents" about his webpage dreamwrestling.com ! From Kindergarden to Grade 4, I went to a small school in Dunleath. From grade 5-9 I was at Calder, and 10-12 was at the Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) where I graduated. I currently work Part Time at the Yorkton Wal-Mart in the Toy Dept. Question: What was the first comic book you ever read? Humm ... I believe it was something like "Legion of Superheroes." (It had at Amazing Bouncing Boy or something on the cover). Question: For people unfamiliar with Donar - God of War #1, can you please tell us something about it? Donar: God Of War #1 is the start of a whole new tale in Star Verse Comics. It goes back to the Days of Knights, and Gods. Donar is a Viking who is on some sort of Rage of Destruction. As you read the comic, you don't understand what the Rage is about, but soon you will in a Future issue. Question: How did you come up with the idea of Donar? Ok. I have always been a Fan of Marvel's Thor. I am also a Huge fan of Greek/Norce Mythology. Every tale that I have read had Thor more Evil than anything else. Marvel's version is a Nice Guy! I wanted to sort of create my Own Thor, the way that I see him to be. Thus ... Donar was Born! Question: I noticed that Donar has a hammer like Thor and is a lot like Thor, can you elaborate about this? The above Question will have the answer for that, but I will just add on that Donar is (soon) going to be Equipped with more than a single Hammer (but I won't say what yet), but I will say that Jon Gilbert a while back thought of one of the weapons. Question: Let's talk a bit about the artwork, it looked good, did you do all of the artwork? Who did the cover? The cover is done by a Wonderful artist who lives in NYC named Paul Candelaria. The story and art in the inside of the comic is done by me. Question: Do you have a website? If you do what is the URL address? Can we see Donar on your website? Yes I do. http://www.geocities.com/star_verse Yes you can see Donar there, along with Many other Star Verse Characters. There is also a Staff page where you can find out about Paul Candelaria, there is a Mall that has Official WWF Merchandise, Comics, PC/Video games, and On-Line Art Portfolio and More. There is a lot more but you have to go there to see it all. Oh, and I update the site weekly. Question: How can somebody contact you? Via E-Mail: star_verse@hotmail.com Or you can mail me at: Ryan Crouse Box 2 Wroxton, Sask. Canada S0A 4S0 Question: If you were stranded on a desert island, what 3 things would you bring with you and why? 1) Paper - to have something to doodle on 2) Pen - to write and draw with 3) Water - so I don't go Crazy! Question: Your thoughts on the comic industry? I honestly believe that the Big Guy (Marvel Comics) has been only putting effort onto One title comics, while letting the rest of the characters Die off! I think that people are sort of getting Tired and annoyed with that, and that is why you are seeing so much small Self-Publishing comic companies such as myself being created! Question: Your 3 favorite fictional heroes and why? 1) Thor - He is just cool. 2) Spawn - Love the comic. 3) Deathlok - He has always been my Favorite Marvel Character. (I also have his Whole series of comics) Question: Your 3 real life heroes and why? 1) Vince McMahon - for creating such an entertaining world of Near Superheroes and for the Undertaker! 2)Ian Churchill - He is my all time favorite artist 3) TIE between the Staff of Blizzard Entertainment (Diablo, WarCraft) & JRR Tolkien - for creating such amazing worlds of Fantasy Question: What movies, cartoons and TV shows are your favorites? My favorite Movie would have to be "A Murder Of Crows." Favorite cartoons would be The Tick, X-Men and of course Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (the Funniest Cartoon of All time!) Favorite TV show would be anything to do with the WWF, Mr. Bean, Monty Python and the Original Who's Line is it Anyway? Question: What books do you read? JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings. Question: What are your hobbies and recreational activities? My Hobbies are playing Diablo II and Half-Life, making my comics, bike riding during the summer. Question: What comic books do you read now? Spawn, The odd Wolverine, Space Ghost (whenever they come out), and some of the Cross Gen comics, oh yea also my back issues of Deathlok. Question: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? What I would really like is to have Star Verse Comics go somewhere. Doesn't have to be Huge or anything, but somewhere good. I would also like to start hiring a Creative Team as in the past 2 months, I have had 3 Portfolios sent to me (2 from US and One from Argentina). Question: What are some of your other projects? The comic I am working on right now is our first attempt at a Comedy. It is called "Hero vs. Villain." The Hero of course being the Hero and he must fight the Crimes of the Villain. After that, is a 2 Part Mini-Series called Tech Storm "Rages Of War." You will have to check out the news section of out site for more on that comic. Question: When can we expect Donar the Movie? Who will play the character parts? Ohh ... probably not for a while, hehe! If there was one, Donar would be played by someone Strong and scruffy looking. And that is about as far as I got. :) Question: When is the next issue coming out? The title is called Hero vs. Villain, and the release date is yet to be Determined. Question: Loki made his appearance, will we be seeing Odin & Thor? There is a pretty good chance that you will be seeing Odin. Thor has not really came to mind as of yet, but I will never say never. Question: Well, I guess that winds up the interview. Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to say before closing? Yes. I would Like to say Thank You for all the Help you have been giving me. You have been a real Help, and I hope that the People's Comic Book Newsletter also makes it higher into this ever so Corporate World! I would also like to say that you can Order "ANY" Star Verse Comic off out site. There is an Order On-line page, with the price (shipping/handling Included), and an order form. Thank You once again for the Great Opportunity! ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [7] Comics Culture Shrapnel Kris Naudus Krissy80@aol.com [Kris Naudus is a full-time student at New York University, founder of the Justice League of Stuyvesant, part-time Amazonian warrior and distinguished scholar of geek studies. Her previous roles have included "pathetic Star Wars fan #6" outside the Zeigfield Theatre last May, as well as "bored cashier #4" at Barnes and Noble. ] Reading Comics on the Q Last Thursday, I took a trip to my local shop to pick up my stuff. It doesn't sound unusual, but I went there after work, and so had to walk twenty-three blocks through Manhattan. Made for an interesting trip, at least. At the store I picked up my stuff, then got on the subway, found myself a seat in the corner, and started reading what I bought. It's something I do all the time - during my freshman year of high school, it was the only time I had to read comics. And nothing quite matches the atmosphere of reading Transmetropolitan on a Q-train smelling of beer and/or urine. Honestly. I also tend to attract more attention when I read comics: it could be the strange covers, the characters displayed on them... but more likely it's the fact that I'm reading a comic book. It's a rare sight, and people tend to look at me with a little more interest than if I was reading the New York Times or Anna Karenina. This instance, however, actually led to something new. The person sitting next to me looked over and said "Hey, is that the new Wizard you're reading?" And yes, it was. And yes, I do read Wizard. Most people complain about it being "stupid" or "flaky" but I really don't care. You see, those qualities are the exact reason I buy Wizard. I like to have fun with my comics habit. If I want serious, thought provoking conversation about comics, I can go to the net. There are plenty of well-written, intelligent, diverse zines on the web that I can read for critical or philosophical discourse. But I want silliness once in a while. I want pointless lists. (Geeks love to make lists. Watch High Fidelity.) I want weird interviews. I like to cast actors in comic movies too. I don't always want to be serious about the stuff I like. And that's what any healthy medium has - both a serious side and a goofy side. You can buy a wide-variety of women's magazines ranging from Ladies' Home Journal to Elle to Cosmopolitan. On a newsstand you may be given a choice between Premiere or Movieline. Men's magazines vary from GQ to Maxim. There is something for everybody. Which is why stuff like Wizard won't or can't go away - it fills a niche. If you dislike it, then your job is to overwhelm that with more of what you prefer. You want bad comics journalism to go away? Then we need more of the good stuff. Anyway, back to the subway. I told him, yes it was the new Wizard, or at least the newest. We started talking about things like Dark Knight Returns and the new sequel, the Spiderman movie, the X-Men DVD. Turns out he hadn't read comics in a while and he was surprised by how much I knew. (So was I.) Eventually his stop came and he had to get off the train, so we introduced ourselves and then said good-bye, and I went back to my Wizard magazine. Meetings like that are part of reason I read comics - the people. I like to talk about these thhings. Even if the person doesn't read comics. Especially if they don't read comics. Wizard is probably the best known comics magazine with non-comics readers, probably because you can find it at a lot of newsstands. That's why it is the public perception of comics journalism. A basic lack of representation by other points of view. So everyone should feel free to let their habit be known - every bit of exposure comics gets rounds out the public perception. To read it in public debunks the myths of comics being for social outcasts or loners. Treat your comics habit like any other hobby. Don't be afraid to let people know what you like, read your comics in public like any book or newspaper. And have fun with it - after all, aren't we here to be entertained? ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [8] SOME PAGES, A COVER, AND A FEW STAPLES Marlan Harris mar93@aol.com [Marlan Harris works in Burbank, CA as a visual effects artist for television. His credits include SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH, MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, and the last five seasons of POWER RANGERS. He much prefers "Happy Holidays" over "Merry Christmas."] SUPERMAN: ARKHAM & EMPEROR JOKER (DC) The much-hyped new Superman creators have been on the titles for a year now and here comes another crossover between the books. Does it work? No. But it's more readable than the rank "Y2K" story from last year. But that's not to say it's not a good creative team and that these creators aren't capable of putting out some good comics. These are some good, sometimes great, creators and they've done some good work elsewhere: Jeph Loeb on BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, Doug Mahnke on MAJOR BUMMER, Ed McGuiness on MR. MAJESTIC. But can their talents translate to the Man Of Steel? They should, but stories like ARKHAM don't make it seem like they can. The premise for the story is a decent one - some alternate universe where everything is backwards: Bizarro is the Superman-style hero of the world, Lois Lane is a multi- millionaire criminal, etc. It's good for an issue or two but then it starts to get old. And even if you don't know that it's the Joker behind it all, it still gets very predictable by the third issue. The problem with multi-part stories like this is that every creative team has to have an issue, so the stories generally run in multiples of 4 (for 4 titles) and if the premise isn't as solid as it should be, it can drag on and on and on. And that's exactly what happens here. The first four "Arkham" issues aren't completely painful but then the Joker is revealed in "Emperor Joker" and it's on for another 4 issues. Another problem with these issues is that you know that the Joker isn't going to completely affect the whole DC Universe and that nothing he does is going to be permanent and that Superman, along with his super- pals, are going to undo everything by the end and everything is back to exactly where it was before the whole story began. Which is as it should be; Superman is supposed to win and set everything right. But there's no danger and no threat in it. You already know the end. Which also isn't always a bad thing -- it's the journey, not the destination -- but along the way the creative team can't pull out anything in this story more interesting than the Joker killing Lex Luthor and Batman over and over, since they keep returning to life. The only other option is threatening Superman's supporting cast, but who? Lois Lane isn't going to die, at least not for long, Batman isn't going to die unless it's in his own comic (and Time-Warner has informed the press long in advance), and there aren't many other people in the Superman supporting cast that anyone really cares about. The ending of the story is also both incomprehensible and unforgivable, but I won't ruin it for you (though it won't make much sense anyway). Though you really shouldn't pick up this story in the inevitable forthcoming trade paperback in the first place. The new Superman creative teams have proven that they're better than this. The single issue and very short multi-part stories are the best the Superman comics have seen in years (particularly the small-scale Smallville stories of Spring '00) . The comics are also struggling to find their own individual identities, with each title focusing on a different aspect of the Man Of Steel. If you've forgotten which Superman title you're reading, here's a handy guide: If there are only ten words to a page and everyone looks horribly swollen, you're reading SUPERMAN with Loeb writing and McGuiness drawing it; if the word "soul" is used more than once or if anyone journeys into one, you're reading ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN and J.M. DeMatteis is writing it (though thankfully for not much longer); if Steel suddenly becomes the star and everyone looks scratched and dirty then you're reading SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL with Mark Shultz writing it and Mahnke drawing; and if the dialogue doesn't seem to match up with the action and it's trying way too hard to be funny, it's ACTION COMICS and it's written by Joe Kelly (who really should be replaced by, say, Chuck Dixon. Or give it over to Scott Lobdell, no one cares about what he writes anyway). Another problem plaguing the Superman comics is a constant reliance on guest artists. I don't have a problem with guest artists per se, but you'd think DC and the Superman office in particular could get better ones, especially if they're going to give them covers to draw. This guy Kano, who seems to draw more regular issues than the established artists, can't decide if he's going to be Michael Golden, Jim Lee, or bad manga so he decides just to be a crappy fill-in artist. Or is he the regular artist? At this point, who cares? Get McAvennie to crack the whip and get his guys doing 22 pages a month. Let Kano draw -- I don't know -- GEN 13 or some other Wildstorm title that no one cares about. DC dropped the ball. They could have gotten Morrison, Waid, Millar, and Peyer on the books. And with them they could have gotten Frank Quitely, Sean Phillips, JJ Jones, Barry Kitson, Phil Jiminez, Steve Yeowell, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary, and just about anyone else they could pick on art. Joe Quesada would be editor-in-chief of DC right now. Marvel would be bankrupt a second time (or third? What are they up to these days?) Jack Kirby would come back to life. It would have changed the comics world. But, for whatever reason, they didn't do it. So for right now what've we got? -sigh- Superman comics that are decent, here and there, but nothing very... super. BATMAN: THE CHALICE (DC) Batman, Jesus, the Holy Grail, and a story that has more religious overtones than it should. This could probably work as a story in the hand of a better writer. Chuck Dixon is best known for his crime fiction-edged superhero comics, and it's what he does well. But this story is way too unfocused and has so many characters from the Batman family that only a reader who keeps up with Batman comics will know what's going on. We'd like to think that a $25 hardcover book will have a story that we don't need reference materials for, that just maybe it's self-contained enough that we could hand it to a non-comics reader and the story would be enough to give them a satisfying read. If the book is going to get into the bookstores it needs to be fairly continuity-free, for casual and non-comics readers. Dixon never says anything about religion other than using it to reference how important the Holy Grail, in Batman's possession, is. Otherwise, it's just another Batman vs. Ra's al Ghul story that doesn't even begin to approach past tales of conflict between the characters in quality. But the bottom line is: Chuck Dixon can not do religious subtext. The reason to get the book is the art by John Van Fleet. Dixon's writing is sparse, you'd like to think so that the art gets more play, but that's just Dixon's writing style. Van Fleet's art is absolutely incredible in small, teasing doses - a cover here, a pin-up there, but all at once it's almost too much. There are some breathtaking interpretations of Gotham City but most of his characters are too stiff and blend into to the background too much to give the story fluidity. There are also some whole, single pages that are left wide open for Van Fleet's illustration but it feels like we're just getting more art at the cost of a better-paced story. Would this have worked better as a $6 prestige format book? In a rare circumstance, that price would have been justified, though the art looks better on bigger pages. But a hardcover? It reads way too quickly to justify a $25 price tag. Well, you ask, what about a softcover? Okay, but it would cost $15. So what's really the difference between the prestige format book at $6 and the softcover at $15? Size of the pages? That's a fairly substantial difference for just a book that's a little bigger - not twice as big. Oh well, as long as people keep buying the books, in any format, whether they're any good or not, DC will keep making them, and probably make a lot of money off them. THE WITCHING HOUR (DC/Vertigo) Jeph Loeb and Chris Bachalo try their hands at a Vertigo mini-series about witches. It would be the usual Vertigo-type fare but both these guys are best known for doing straight super-hero stuff. Bachalo actually did a long run of SHADE THE CHANGING MAN for Vertigo years ago which was forgotten when he began doing Marvel's GENERATION X , the title that slowly sucked the creativity and spontaneity out of his work and from which he has yet to fully recover. But Bachalo does some good work on THE WITCHING HOUR, much better than the muddled and incomprehensible STEAMPUNK. The main problem with TWH is that it's filled with characters that are way too cool and way too mysterious to be able to relate to or even like before you're thrown into the overly story with them. One character in particular gives her whole backstory, including the horribly obvious Salem Witch Trials, and Loeb tries to shoehorn this into the story but it's just doesn't fit. Worse, this technique of making backstory the story only almost worked for Vertigo's WITCHCRAFT, and here Loeb can't decide if he's fully going to do it or not. The main story, however, Loeb appears to be making up as he goes along, which helps it and hurts it in equal measure. There doesn't seem to be much of a story to speak of, save for the characters speaking obliquely about their pasts, and generally weird stuff that doesn't happen for any reason other than the fact that the comic is about witches. Loeb, who usually does well when using words sparingly, especially well for his current Superman stuff, is using the story as an excuse to string together the characters saying clever things. But a funny thing happens about halfway through, if you're even bothering to read the whole thing in the first place: Loeb's stream-of-consciousness writing and Bachalo's admittedly lush artwork carry you away and you'll find yourself firmly rooted in the issues, whether you're aware of it or not. Is it magic? No. But you could do worse with some Vertigo stuff. Consider this Vertigo-Lite. mar93@aol.com http://www.bonemachine.homestead.com/main.html ______________________________________________________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [9] Sound And Fury Craig Lemon craiglemon@aol.com [Reading comics for 20 years, reviewing them for five, and now reviews editor at http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/ Craig is waiting for the bottom to fall out of the market he loves and cherishes, and hopes it never happens.] Zero Girl #1 Writer/Artist: Sam Kieth Publisher: DC Homage Comics Plot: Amy Smootster has a secret, and the kids at her high school will torment her until they find it out. Uh oh, here comes Carrie. This is possibly one of the best two or three new titles that DC will launch this year, and it will almost certainly flop badly. This is a crying shame, and the failure of this title will be down to YOU! Yes, you, sitting there at your PC, flicking through the reviews, wondering if any plot details will be given away so you don't need to buy some comics, wondering if there is anything out there really, really worth your hard-earned money, wondering what's for tea. Forget your PC. Forget other comics. Forget your tea, even. Well, maybe not your tea, a balanced diet and regular meals are pretty important. Have tea first, then go to your local comic shop, bash down the door, and buy this. Buy a copy for yourself, and pass it on. Give it to your girlfriend, your sister, and passing female who might not punch you for stopping them. If you're female already, get those cloddish guys to read this too - it hasn't got sex in it, the lead character is not overly attractive, and she doesn't have massive breasts; but it's got story, it's got heart, and it's got soul. Let's start off with Stephen King's Carrie. Use that as a base - you've got a weird new girl at school, home life in complete turmoil. Other kids don't understand what she's about, so she's a natural bullying target. As soon as the bullying starts, so do the weird events. Except instead of covering her in pig's blood, she gets her head stuff down a toilet. And instead of impaling people with knives, setting fire to them, throwing them into walls, and generally proving yourself a nasty piece of work if pushed too far, this girl has something protecting her...something that takes circular (or thereabouts) objects, and uses them creatively to help her out. For example, when attacked by the school bullies, a cupboard full of toilet rolls bursts open, and, er, they attack! These piranha toilet rolls won't take no for an answer; unfortunately they don't fly so much as fall, so running away does the trick - leaves the bullies wary, but unharmed. Later on, we see how squarish objects (say, bricks, for example), are the enemies of the circulars, as the phrase "come down on you like a ton of bricks" takes on a whole new, literal, meaning - fortunately a circle of newspaper is always a handy umbrella to have. Weird, intriguing, funny, and essential to have. Remember, if you all don't buy a copy, and this one gets cancelled, I'll track you down via you IP address and send the toilet rolls around. Buy it. Now. Ultimate Spider-Man #4 Writers: Bill Jemas (plot), Brian Michael Bendis (plot/script) Artists: Mark Bagley (p), Art Thibert/Dan Panosian (i) Publisher: Marvel Plot: Well he's had three issues more than the 60s version of Spider- Man, so ta ta Uncle Ben. When reviewing a book like this, it is hard to remember to detach one's knowledge of the Lee origin story from the Sixties (although it's not hard to forget about the recent Spider-Man Chapter One travesty). In fact, one wonders whether one should forget about the Lee stuff, as I suspect the real audience for USM is existing comics readers, who know well the ins and outs of Spidey's origin. What we've got so far is a much more detailed look at Peter Parker's school and home life, showing us more of his interactions with Uncle Ben than we've ever seen before - all to make us more emotionally entangled with the guy and torn up when he get the finger. Which happens at the end of this issue. Or does it? See, we get the events we expect to see - Peter makes a bit of cash as a wrestler, but not a lot; he fails to prevent a robber from escaping (this time the robber has done over a deli and knocked a woman down - it's a bit heartless of PP to not do something, before powers he would've wilted, but this time he takes the time to joke around with the robber before letting him pass. This just does not ring right). Furthermore, it appears that Peter's grades are slipping - we don't really have any indication of this other than his report card from Night School (what about day school?), why shouldn't we see how PP's "other priorities" are affecting his schoolwork. It's not as if he daydreams. Anyway, it's only one subject, it's only from Night School, and suddenly it's a huge deal and PP runs aw