The News Blog of Comics Culture
Wizard World New Jersey…you were just not to be.
Cincinnati Comic-Con — I’ll see you in my dreams.
On its website, Wizard has removed many never-to-be-scheduled conventions — and even its upcoming Los Angeles convention, in favor of a more modest, feasible list including proven shows. The current schedule calls for:
Is there a more cautionary tale in comics than that of the failing fortunes of Diamond Comics owner and über-scollectorSteve Geppi? Daniel Best reads through some of the court documents on the Montana Estate vs Steve Geppi lawsuit we alluded to the other day, and they are not too thrilling if you are Steve Geppi, the owner of Diamond Comics and once considered the richest man in comics. In a nutshell, back in 2006, a flush Geppi offered the family or Archie artist $1,000,000 for a collection of original Archie art, while attesting that he was worth $20 million, as the attached exhibit shows. As time went by, a few things happened — Geppi made a series of very bad deals which ate up his money, especially as the economy and the real estate market tanked; and the art also lost a lot of value:
Thanks to some hardworking employees, as the above video shows, the Staten Island branch of Jim Hanley’s Universe which was closed due to flooding is now open for business.
Only a year ago, Tom Bouden’s gay-themed adpatation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was fighting rejection on Apple’s mobile platforms, leading to cries of a double standard where sex and violence were concerned. But now LGBT publisher Northwest Press is claiming victory by having Teleny and Camille, Glamazonia: The Uncanny Super-Tranny, and Rainy Day Recess: The Complete Steven’s Comics all approved by Apple. All are now available via the iBooks app.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve seen Tom Spurgeon’s essay on facing a life threatening illness, an illness which led to his unexpected blogging absence earlier this summer, and which still affects him, although he’s recovering. Since looking death in the face usually prompts some inventory of life, Spurgeon does just that in an astonishing essay that covers his life and his life in comics, if there is a difference. That a man fighting for his life should spend that time thinking about the Green Lantern movie is both ridiculous and awesome — Tom’s thoughts on why we chose the comics life and why we stay there speak for me about 80% of the time. It’s not that we have on choice, but rather why would we WANT to leave a field that is full of such honest, unpretentious work and creative, life-loving people?
Now this is a great way to spend your money! Cartoonist Jason Young has spent the last three years slowly commissioning an array of great indie artists to redraw FANTASTIC FOUR #9, the issue co-starring the Sub-Mariner. It’s a Coober Skeeber/Strange Tales mash-up that proves the talents of all involved. Young writes:
Last week legendary cartoonist R. Crumb disappointed Australian fans who were looking forward to a rare public appearance, when he withdrew, The cause was incendiary comments in a Sunday Telegraph piece called Smutty show a comic outrage which branded him a pervert.
In a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Crumb explains himself a length, and to those who have branded him a woman-hating creep, it’s mostly to make his wife happy — she feared for his safety:
Severe rains pummeled the East Coast this weekend, leading to record rainfall at Kennedy Airport and flooding throughout the region, especially hard-hit Staten Island. And sadly, the New Dorp location of Jim Hanley’s Universe comics shop was badly hit, as the above video shows. On Twitter, it was announced that
Our Staten Island store in New Dorp will be closed again Monday. It suffered extensive rain damage in this weekend’s storms.
A clean-up effort is under way but the total amount of damage looks severe.
Mostly the work of Tom Kenny (Spongebob), Andy Suriano (Clone Wars) and Stephen DeStefano (Venture Bros.), the PLASTIC MAN cartoon pilot was created in 2006 for Cartoon Network but didn’t get picked up, alas. It seems to have been much inspired by Kyle Baker’s take on the character.
And it turns out that more is on the way!
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